


Identity

by ButcherOfBlackwater



Series: Parts Of A Bigger Universe [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, Happy Is A Babysitter, M/M, More Like UA, Not Evil Brock Rumlow, Not Really AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pepper is the best, Sharon and Tony are family, Tony Stark & Clint Barton Friendship, Tony Stark is a genius, rhodey is best bro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButcherOfBlackwater/pseuds/ButcherOfBlackwater
Summary: Tony Stark knew exactly what he wanted out of life. In short, he wanted to be better than Howard Stark while avoiding all of the man’s mistakes. Part of that was constantly saying no to SHIELD. He got kidnapped and freed himself, without SHIELD. Assassins from a supposedly dead organization came after him, and he saved himself. Even while actively dying, he didn’t turn to his father’s agency and instead worked to keep himself alive. Because Tony Stark didn’t need anyone to save him. Now all he had to do was convince the brainwashed assassin that kept showing up in his workshop of that.CoversIron Man 1andIron Man 2.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Parts Of A Bigger Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662559
Comments: 63
Kudos: 232





	1. I Am My Father's Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark is born and grows up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is the first part of my attempt to rewrite the MCU, so it starts with events before _Iron Man 1_ and goes all the way to _Iron Man 2_. This is a universe where Tony Stark knows all about SHIELD from the very beginning, which causes all sorts of changes. I don't want to spoil the whole story, but there will be several changes while still following the established plots of the movies.

****

**29 MAY 1970**

On the day that his son was born, Howard Stark kneeled in his private office and cried like he hadn’t allowed himself to in years. The part of him that wanted to rejoice, that ached to be at his wife’s bedside and holding his son, was drowned out by a paralyzing fear that caused his breath to stutter in his lungs. Because the innocent child came from Howard, who wasn’t exactly innocent and who had enemies. People would target his son because of him. If his son followed in his footsteps, people would target him for other reasons. For a moment, he prayed to a god that he stopped believing in for his son to be ordinary. Average. The thought was fleeting, barely even registered before skittering away, and then Howard was screaming. So full of fear and rage that he couldn’t even understand what he was screaming out as he tore his office apart, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was his son.

“The only thing that matters is Tony.”

**18 APRIL 1973**

As Tony toddled towards her, Peggy shifted the file that she was reading to her left hand and reached out with her right hand. Tiny hands clasped onto her arm a moment later, and Peggy didn’t bother trying to hide her smile as she easily lifted Tony into the air and then plopped him down into her lap. She knew that her work was important, but she took a moment to pepper kisses against the toddler’s face and held him close to her as she started to read again. When the usually active kid just relaxed against her and didn’t immediately start reaching for everything that he could get his hands on, Peggy looked down and watched in amazement as wide brown eyes moved over the lines written in the file that she was holding. Tony wasn’t quite three years old yet, but it certainly looked like he was reading.

“Are you going to be a genius like your daddy?” Peggy asked him. At the mention of his father, Tony grinned up at her and started nodding his head so hard that his dark hair brushed across his eyes. Peggy swept it back with a steady hand and wished that Howard was around to see Tony, instead of holing himself up in his lab.

“Genius like Aunt Peggy.” The words held a childish lisp but were clear, and Peggy couldn’t resist brushing a kiss across the top of Tony’s head. After he snuggled back against her, she prompted him to read aloud what he could while she filled in the gaps.

**31 OCTOBER 1974**

Maria poked her head into her son’s room, bag containing several different costumes hanging from her wrist, and looked around before spotting Tony sitting at his child-sized desk that was a perfect replica of the much larger desk in his father’s office. She stopped herself from calling out as she saw the look of concentration on her son’s face; his overly long hair was sticking up as if he had been pulling on it, and the tip of his tongue was poked out of the corner of his mouth as his little hands moved. Looking at him reminded her of Howard so strongly that she could feel her throat burning, and she reached up to press her hand over the front of her neck as she desperately tried not to cry. She understood why Howard wasn’t at home, knew what he was doing was important, but she wanted him to be standing next to her as they watched their son.

“Mom! Look!” Tony must have noticed her, because he was racing towards her with his current project held above his head. Maria finished opening his door and walked inside, and she knelt down as her son started explaining what he had been working on. Even at four years old, his mind raced with ideas and caused him to trip over his words as he tried to walk her through what he’d been doing.

“Rallenta, angelo mio.” _Slow down, my angel_. She had slipped into her mother tongue without realizing it, but Tony still did as she instructed and took a careful breath before speaking more slowly. He hadn’t been taking any kind of Italian lessons, had only listened to her speak the language, but she wasn’t surprised that he had picked up on it. Her son was a genius, and that was even more confirmed as he started talking about the circuit board that he had built.

_“You should be here, Howard. He has your eyes, your hair, and your passions,”_ she thought as her son continued to talk. She could keep up with Tony for now, but Howard was the genius. She had picked up things of her own over the years, but she had always paid more attention to the light in Howard’s eyes than the words he was using whenever he started to talk about his own projects. She had to keep reminding herself that what Howard was doing was important, for everyone, but still wanted to cry as her little Tony’s eyes held that same light as his free hand moved through the air in wide gestures. _“God, Howard, he really is just like you.”_

**25 DECEMBER 1976**

It had been a good day, which was becoming a rarity in Howard’s life. The morning had dawned cold, and he had woken up to his ecstatic son bouncing on the bed while his wife looked on from their bedroom doorway. Instead of chastising his son for waking him up in such an abrupt way, Howard had grabbed Tony and pulled him down for a tickle fight that had left the six year old laughing until tears appeared in the corners of his eyes. _That_ moment had made his entire day. Smiling down at his son, who had looked up at him with a wide smile, while the love of his life had watched on in quiet amusement.

The rest of the day had been just as good. Tony had been so excited about Christmas, and Howard had been amazed when he didn’t immediately ask for presents and instead raced to the kitchen. Jarvis and Ana had the holidays off, and Maria had never enjoyed cooking. Howard had pulled a chair into the kitchen for Tony to stand in so that they could cook together, simple pancakes and nothing too fancy, and Maria fixed them coffee and hot chocolate for Tony. (Howard slipped his son a few sips of coffee when the kid asked and then grinned when he immediately asked for more.) Breakfast went by surprisingly fast as Tony inhaled his pancakes, and Maria had to smother her laughter behind her hand as their son ate without even properly chewing.

Watching Tony open his presents was the highlight of his day, and he sat back on the couch in the den with Maria tucked against his side to watch the way that the kid furiously opened his presents. There were the always usual clothes and books, which Tony seemed just as enthused about as if they had been toys. Some of his toys were more fitting for his age, but there were a few others that Howard assumed that most children didn’t get. Did most children receive toolboxes as Christmas presents? Tony’s eyes had lit up as he looked at the bright red toolbox, filled with equipment designed by Howard, but there was still one present left. It took some prompting to break Tony away from the toolbox, until Maria reminded him that he still needed to open his last present.

“A bike!” Tony yelled and looked over at them with wide eyes. Several disassembled parts were spread across the den floor, but Howard wasn’t surprised that Tony had been able to tell what the parts equaled up to.

“Ready to put it together?” Howard asked just to see the excited look in his son’s eyes. Maria shooed them into the garage to work, and the rest of the morning was spent putting the bike together.

Once the bike was built, he and Maria took Tony outside to ride it. He listened to his son cheer as he took off, a little wobbly at first but quickly adjusting, and he tightened his arms around Maria’s middle to stop himself from chasing after the kid as he raced away. Maria leaned back against him before reaching up to grab his hands, holding onto him and anchoring him, and they both watched as Tony sped around so that he was mostly a red blur. These were the days that made everything worth it. The long nights, the worry and the fear, the assassination attempts…all of it was worth it to hear his son laugh as he played like any other kid.

“I wish it could be like this all the time,” Maria whispered. She knew the risks of what Howard did, but she stayed with him. They didn’t always agree on things, but they loved each other. They loved Tony.

“So do I,” Howard said just as quietly.

Two days later, twelve of Howard’s agents were killed in the field. When Tony showed him the engine he’d made, Howard was again reminded of his son’s genius and snapped at him to stop building such foolish things before he could stop himself. Tony left the garage with tears in his eyes, and Howard hated himself. Hated how afraid he was that his son would become like him. Would invent things to kill people while not being good enough to invent things to save people. Distance…he needed to keep distance. He also needed a drink, to wash out the taste of the day.

**09 AUGUST 1978**

“Anthony.” The small boy stopped kicking at the ground and looked up with wide dark eyes, and Jarvis suppressed a sigh at seeing the familiar look. It was the same expression Howard had whenever he was forced into doing something that he didn’t want to do, only in miniature.

“He’s not coming, is he.” It wasn’t phrased as a question, and Jarvis tried to ignore the emotions stirring at the hopeless sound of young Tony’s voice. Despite his protesting knees, Jarvis knelt down in the driveway so that he was at the same eye-level as the eight year old with ancient eyes.

“You know that your father loves you very much.” Tony’s lips twisted as he looked away, and Jarvis felt his heart ache for the young child. “You are your father’s whole world.”

“The world is the world,” Tony pointed out. It was a simple statement, but Tony was far too intelligent for his own good. So intelligent that he understood exactly what his father did for a living; Tony knew that his father was working to keep the world safe, just like he knew that his father wasn’t going to show up to see him off to boarding school.

“I’m sure he wants to be here,” Jarvis tried to salvage.

“Then he would be. We need to go. I don’t want to be late.” Tony turned away from him and crawled into the open backseat, and Jarvis slowly straightened up. When he looked towards the house, he could see Maria standing in front of the window of the den. She had already said her goodbyes to her son, and Jarvis knew that his Ana would look after her until his return.

_“You can’t keep neglecting your family like this, Howard,”_ Jarvis thought as he walked around the car. The world was undoubtedly important, but so was the subdued child sitting sullenly in the backseat.

**18 NOVEMBER 1984**

Agent Fury walked down the hallway of the boarding school, unnoticed due to the early hour on a weekend, until he reached his destination. It took a moment longer than he’d been expecting to get the door unlocked, the door had been modified with a much better lock than the standard, but he still got the door open without too much effort. He stepped into the bedroom and took a quick look around; bits of metal and scraps of scribbled on paper were strewn throughout the room, clothes were hanging off every surface, and the fourteen year old that he was looking for was sprawled on top of his messy bed with his head hanging over the side. The kid was snoring, and possibly drooling.

Fury balled his fist up and knocked once on the footboard, and the kid jumped up like he’d been electrocuted. Arms and legs went all over the place as he flailed, nearly causing him to completely tumble off the bed, but he managed to keep himself on the mattress somehow. He twisted around so that he was looking directly at Fury, little bit of drool clinging to the corners of his mouth, and Fury resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the kid gaped at him in confusion. He hadn’t been exactly happy with this assignment, even though it had come directly from Director Carter. She had told him that the kid was a genius, but right now he looked like every other brainless teenager that Fury had come across. Until the kid’s eyes narrowed as he really started to study the unannounced stranger in his room.

“Couldn’t be bothered to come himself so he sent an agent? Do you even have a high enough clearance to deal with me?” the kid asked.

“Your father didn’t send me,” Fury said in place of an answer. Now that the kid was right side up, Fury could see the similarities. He had only really met Howard Stark once but had seen him around a few times, and the kid did look like him. Same dark hair and eyes. Same unamused smile.

“Peggy,” the kid sighed and slipped off the edge of the bed. He had fallen asleep in jeans and a sweater, and Fury watched with interest as the kid left his back open as he walked across the room to sit at his desk. “Why are you here, agent?”

“I think we both know why I’m here.” Fury looked at what he was sure was the start of a robot army as he crossed the room until he could lean against the kid’s desk, and dark eyes looked up at him while the kid smiled.

“I have no idea what you’re implying, and I resent the implication that you’re here because of my wrongdoing. Where’s your proof?” Full of arrogance, just like his father.

“I told the director she had to be wrong. There was no way some dumbass kid hacked into the Pentagon,” Fury said while inspecting a piece of paper full of equations. From the corner of his eye, he could see the way the kid struggled not to reply to that. His nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed in a glare, jaw ticking as his lips pressed into a thin line…until the kid suddenly started laughing. Head thrown back, arms crossed over his stomach, full body laughing.

“You’re good! I’ll tell Peggy that you can stay. Maybe get you bumped up a level,” the kid said with a too wide grin.

“I’m here,” Fury started and then stopped. The kid looked up at him in disinterest, like he was humoring Fury and didn’t care about what he had to say, but his jaw was still tense. “To offer my congratulations. Graduating at fourteen. Your parents must be proud, Stark.”

“I’m not graduating,” the kid said in confusion. Fury raised a brow as he looked right at the kid, and he saw the exact moment that it clicked. The kid was smart enough to hack something as secure as the Pentagon, which could not be proved but SHIELD still knew better, and that meant he was ready to leave boarding school. Going by the slow rise of anger showing on the kid’s face, this was a punishment and not something deserving of a congratulations. “I’m taking back my recommendation.”

_“Shit,”_ Fury thought as the kid’s expression evened out. The kid was a certified genius and had the look of someone a century older. He looked tired. Far too tired for someone that young.

“I’m just the messenger, Stark,” Fury said and stood up. He crossed the room in a few strides and reached out for the door handle, but he stopped at the last moment and looked over his shoulder. The kid was already scribbling in another notebook, shoulders hunched in tight, and Fury spoke without really thinking it through. “Word of advice, Stark. Keep your head down.”

“Not my style, agent,” the kid said as he shot a grin over his shoulder.

“Smartass,” Fury muttered and then moved out of the room. Another successful mission was over.

**30 MAY 1986**

Rhodey watched as the large group of drunken students surround his best friend and the winning robot, and he grinned even while taking a long pull from the half-empty bottle in his hand. Tony had spent the previous day, his sixteenth birthday, trying to hide how upset he was that his parents didn’t even call him. Rhodey had been able to tell, because the little pain in the ass was his best friend and could never fool Rhodey when he was upset. Today, he could tell that Tony was genuinely happy as people continuously toasted his win and gushed over the robot that Tony kept insisting was named Dum-E. All Rhodey knew was that if the little robot destroyed anymore of his clothes that he was going to reduce it to scrap metal.

“Rhodes! Catch!” He barely had time to drop his bottle onto the table next to him before Tony was flying right at him, and he could hear Tony laughing like an idiot as Rhodey instinctually caught him while managing to keep himself upright.

“Rhodey!” the others in the room cheered. Rhodey loosened his arms and let Tony drop, but he caught himself and grinned up at Rhodey instead of dropping to the ground. Rhodey couldn’t even pretend to be mad and instead slung an arm around Tony’s shoulder, shuffling him around until his best friend was slumped against his side so that the two of them could look out over the room.

“You did good, Tones,” Rhodey quietly admitted. He had been sure that Tony was going to win, but his best friend could be an idiot sometimes and had been convinced that he was going to lose. Rhodey had even been able to see how shocked he was when he was announced as the winner, even as he cheered loud enough to have the people immediately surrounding him muffling their ears.

“You helped,” Tony said with a shrug. Rhodey had given encouragement and hadn’t let Tony give up, but that was pretty much all he did. He didn’t say anything though and just let Tony lean against him instead. The party had been going on for a couple of hours and Tony had been drinking the entire time, but Rhodey hadn’t said anything about the severe underage drinking because Tony deserved to celebrate.

After a moment, Rhodey reached up to ruffle Tony’s hair and then laughed as Tony squawked and started squirming to get away. The two of them shuffled back and forth, laughing and carefree, and it felt good. They had both been stressed lately, with classes and personal lives, and it was good to just enjoy the moment. Tony got an award for creating a robot that kept trying to clean their dorm room, and he hadn’t seen Tony without a smile since his name was called out. So Rhodey ruffled his friend’s hair just to make him laugh and then pushed him back into the group of people that wanted to congratulate him.

**29 MAY 1987**

Peggy hadn’t left her home much in the two years since her retirement, but there was no place that she would rather be. The sun was hot overhead, blistering even through the wide-brimmed hat she was wearing, and she had to keep her sunglasses on so that she’d be able to see. She was sitting between Jarvis and Howard, and she could hear the quiet sounds of Maria trying not to cry on Howard’s other side. At least the woman was making an effort. Jarvis was crying outright, and Peggy shared a small smile with Ana when she glanced over to check on her old friend. Her own eyes were brimming with tears behind the dark lenses; the only person who didn’t seem to be affected by the proceedings was Howard, but she knew that the clench of his jaw meant that he was trying not to react.

When they called out Tony’s name, Peggy whistled as she clapped along with everyone else. Howard cut his eyes over at her at the sound, which only caused her to whistle again and clap a little louder. She could see Tony grinning as he accepted his diploma, and he looked so much like the young Howard that she had met a lifetime ago that the first tear escaped. She caught it before it could fall past her sunglasses, just a quick swipe, and she kept her eyes on Tony as the ceremony continued. It seemed like only yesterday that a toddler had been sitting in her lap and learning to read using her top secret files, and today he was seventeen and graduating MIT.

As soon as the ceremony was over, Peggy and Maria were leading the way through the crowd to get to Tony. Ana was still trying to get Jarvis to stop crying and helping to steer him around people, and Howard was following along behind them silently. They passed by James Rhodes and his family, and Peggy smiled at the sight of Tony’s best friend surrounded by his family until she caught sight of Tony. He was swimming in his black graduation gown, cap sitting askew on top of his messy hair, and Maria was the first one to reach him. She stood back and watched as his eyes clenched shut as Maria held him close, and he was grinning when he pulled back. Until Howard stepped up. Peggy hated the way that Tony’s expression became guarded, and she could feel a familiar sense of anger as Howard stiffly shook Tony’s hand.

“Peggy!” Tony yelled as he caught sight of her.

Peggy pushed her anger aside so that she could pull Tony into her arms, and she held onto the kid that she loved like a son as she whispered her congratulations for only him to hear. Letting him go wasn’t easy, but Jarvis and Ana needed a turn with the birthday boy. Maria was soon standing next to Jarvis and Ana in front of Tony, but Peggy held back so that she could stand next to Howard. They were both looking at where the others were grouped together, but Peggy was confident that they were far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard. She took a small step to the side so that her arm brushed against Howard’s, and she could see him tensing from the corner of her eye. Preparing himself.

“Why?” was all she asked. She knew that Howard loved his son, so why couldn’t he show Tony that? Tell him?

“It’s not your family,” Howard told her sternly. As if that tone had ever worked on her before?

“You are my family, Howard, which means that Tony is too. He’s so brilliant and _good_.” Tony was a bit of a troublemaker, but she knew that he was going to be more than just a great man. He was going to be a _good_ man. “He’s just like you.”

At that, Howard visibly shuttered and closed his eyes for a moment. Was that why? The little bit of anger that she had felt was replaced by a nearly overwhelming sense of sadness, and she reached over to grab Howard’s hand. She didn’t lace their fingers together or hold on for very long. The grip was mostly for a connection, and she felt his fingers briefly squeeze hers before she pulled away. She didn’t like the reasoning, but she could understand it in a distant sort of way. Because only Howard Stark could hate himself so much that the hatred would bleed over onto the son that was growing up to be just like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated about whether or not to write this chapter, but I do think it's important to see how Tony's past is different from canon events. Also, I just really wanted to write about baby!Tony. As for Howard Stark, I never really liked him until I watched _Agent Carter_. While I do not think that Howard was a good father, I also don't think that he was a horrible father. So this was my attempt to explain why Howard was the way he was, without excusing his behavior because there is no excuse. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. I Am Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony loses but isn't alone.

****

**17 DECEMBER 1991**

Tony watched as the cop’s lips moved, eyes seeing the words even as he heard them, and then he calmly shut the door while the cop was mid-sentence. Who let a rookie come out to his home and give him the news anyway? Whoever had made that call was an idiot. There were some muffled words for a minute before the cop left, and Tony’s head was tilted to the side so that he could see through the sliver of space where the curtain hadn’t been perfectly aligned as the cop car slowly moved down the driveway. Even after the rear lights had faded, Tony stayed immobile as his thoughts circled around each other.

_“…sorry…loss…accident…mother.”_

_Accident._

That was the one word he kept coming back to, and it felt like some kind of wild animal was clawing its way through his bloodstream as he finally straightened up to move away from the window. The house was empty and echoing as he moved through it, navigating his way blindly because he knew his way around his home, until he reached the garage where he’d been most of the day once again doing the opposite of what his father expected. _Father_. He could hear the young cop’s voice clearly, tinged with nerves but without hesitation, and Tony stumbled to a stop just inside of the garage. For a moment, he felt like a little kid again. Like he’d just snuck into his father’s workshop to craft a surprise for the one person he wanted most to be proud of him. With grease thick under his nails and staining his clothes. Feeling lost when he realized that his father wasn’t going to be coming home.

_“…your…car…father.”_

_“Fuck this,”_ Tony thought as he moved across the garage in a few strides. He got the garage door open and was seated on the motorcycle that he had modified himself, and he quickly did the math as he sped out of the garage.

There was no telling how much time had passed between the _accident_ and Tony being notified; knowing Howard and everything that he was involved in, it had been at least several hours. It was late afternoon now, he wasn’t sure about the exact time, but it was definitely afternoon. He pushed the bike to its limit, coaxing out as much speed as possible, and he tried to ignore the sound of his mother’s voice in his head telling him to be more careful. Don’t take the corners too fast, don’t get distracted, don’t see a limit as a challenge. He ignored every whispered memory. He even ignored the sound of his father calling him reckless and undeserving of the title of genius, and why he thought of those weak insults instead of the more cutting ones wasn’t something that he had time to really ruminate on as he tried to break the laws of physics.

He knew when he was close, because he blew right past a suit that had clearly been napping instead of doing his job. Not even a full minute later, he was forced to stop by a fleet of vehicles. Despite his hurry and frantic movements, he was careful with the bike as he climbed off and wrenched his helmet off. It was like he instinctively knew where to go, feet easily moving around vehicles and barricades, and his mind catalogued a grim-faced agent heading right for him. There was a hand reaching for him, to stop him or slow him down, and he again moved without thinking. The punch he threw was sloppy, but he had built enough muscle over the years from constant mechanic work that there was just the right amount of strength to break the agent’s nose after catching him by surprise.

“Stark!” There was another body coming right for him, but he recognized this agent. That recognition was the only thing that kept him from reacting violently and instead moved him to dodge around.

“Tell me what happened.” There were footsteps following behind him, boots oddly loud against the dirt, and Tony’s left knee buckled as he caught sight of the back of the car. He swatted away the hand that reached for him and steadied himself so that he could keep walking forward, and he hated the way his stomach tried to crawl up his throat.

“Scatter! Now!” At Fury’s command, the agents surrounding the car took off. Tony could hear them all scrambling to vacate the immediate vicinity, but he couldn’t look away from the car to see where they were all going.

“It wasn’t a malfunction. I checked the car over myself.” Howard always left for the holidays, Tony had known that he’d be spending Christmas alone in his childhood home, which was why he had looked the car over as soon as he first arrived home. He’d checked in with his mother, of course, but he hadn’t seen Howard until his father woke him up. He’d passed out on the couch after cleaning a few things up on the car, not that he’d told Howard that.

“No, there weren’t any issues with the car,” Fury confirmed. Not that he needed it confirmed, because he already knew that.

“Howard wasn’t drinking. Hasn’t had a drop in a year.” Tony’s voice sounded distant in his own ears, and it felt so odd to hear himself defending Howard. Defending Howard’s drinking problem, which his mother had told him on numerous occasions that he was working past.

“We’re still running-”

“He wouldn’t do that with…not while driving. He wouldn’t.” There had never been any doubt that Howard loved Maria, even if Tony had accused him of as much during some of their louder arguments. Even at his worst, Howard never would have put Maria in danger like that. Which was why Tony heard himself repeating, “He wouldn’t.”

“Stark.” His shoulders curled forwards as he leaned down to grip the edge of the still open trunk, cold metal bit into his palms and cleared his mind a little, and he heard the ruffle of clothes as Fury undoubtedly crossed his arms. “Tony.”

“What did he have?” He was looking into the trunk, which looked perfectly normal. A little messy but believably messy after a crash, and Tony’s arms were straining from how hard he was pressing down against the metal lip of the trunk. Howard was a neat freak. Tony liked to mess up his space whenever he felt like being a bigger pain in the ass than usual, but he’d double-checked the trunk during his maintenance. There hadn’t been enough in it to make a mess. Howard had added to the trunk, and there weren’t any bags of personal items.

“I don’t know what you’re-” Tony pushed off and turned so suddenly that the metal cut in deep against his palms, felt that deep itch that accompanied his skin splitting and the rush of hot blood meeting the cold air, and Fury looked unimpressed as Tony stalked up to him.

“I’m not some idiot civilian that you can lie to and brush off. I _know_ what Howard was. What did he have?” Tony asked again.

“We don’t know. He had it off the books.”

Tony swore as he spun back around, marching around the car, and he could see the folds in the metal from the harsh impact. When he got closer to the front of the car, he could see the tape outlines on the front seats. The bodies were gone, but his mind easily supplied the details to match up with those outlines. Howard behind the wheel, Maria in the passenger seat, and had it been quick? There was dried blood on the steering wheel, from the impact, but nothing that he could immediately see on the passenger side. He hoped that it was instant. That there had been the shock of a crash and then nothingness. Because if either of them had survived the crash, whoever had been after them would have made sure that they were-

“I want everything on what happened.” When Fury started to protest, Tony talked right over him. “Tell your director that if I don’t get everything, I’ll get it for myself.”

“There’s another way.” Tony looked away from the steering wheel, he had reupholstered the leather himself, and over at where Fury was still looking blankly at him.

“No.”

“You were considering it. Four years since graduation and still considering, but we thought you were getting closer to a decision. Come work with us now. Help us.” It was a dirty time to ask, when Tony was standing next to the car where his parents had just died, but that was how SHIELD operated. They were good at twisting favorable outcomes out of tragedies.

“So that I can be the next accident?” Tony asked in all seriousness.

“Refusing to work for SHIELD won’t stop HYDRA from targeting you,” Fury said honestly. There it was, out in the open. Maybe there wasn’t any actual evidence yet, but it was an open secret. HYDRA still existed, however weak they were, and they had just landed a devastating blow on SHIELD by killing one of the founders.

“I will never work for SHIELD.” He could never tell if Howard really wanted him to work for the spy organization that he had helped to build; even when he had all but told Tony that he had no choice in the matter, he had always looked like he’d bit into something sour. “You should tell Peggy directly. Don’t send some young dumbass agent in a cop costume to tell her. It’d be insulting.”

“You’re not going to tell her?” Fury asked after Tony had passed him. He couldn’t see any other agents as he steadily walked away from the car, but he knew they were around somewhere. His whole focus was on getting back to his bike and getting back home.

“I’ve got work to do. You’ve got twelve hours before I get the files for myself,” he said without looking back at Fury. His hands were still bleeding and throbbing in pain as he grabbed his bike, but it was the kind of pain that he could ignore. Secondary.

✪  
✪  
✪

“Mister Stark.”

Tony’s spine curved as his shoulders lowered, and it took two slow breaths before he was able to straighten up. He didn’t turn to look at where he was sure Jarvis was standing in the doorway, because Tony hadn’t been able to look at Jarvis since he told the man about the car accident. Tony had seen the shock bleed into a kind of grief that he still felt insulated from, and he hadn’t been able to look him in the eye as he asked Jarvis to take care of the arrangements. Jarvis had agreed, because he was a good man. So good that he had left Tony to his own devices, until now. It must be time.

“I’m not going,” Tony said simply.

“You will regret this, one day. Please, Mister Stark-” Jarvis cut off as the wrench Tony had been holding went sailing across the room, and for a moment the only sounds in the garage came from Tony’s ragged breathing. He quickly got himself under control and picked up a different tool as he returned his focus to the piece of machinery in front of him.

“I’m not going so that a bunch of vultures can try and get pictures of me weeping graveside. You should go, say your goodbyes or whatever people do, and stop worrying. I’ll be fine, Jarvis,” Tony said and risked a glance over his shoulder. Jarvis’s eyes were already red from crying, hands clasped tightly in front of him, and Tony felt his strength fleeing. “I’m not saying I’ll never go, but I can’t be there today.”

“I understand, sir.” Jarvis looked like he wanted to say more, but he stayed quiet instead. He dipped his head before backing out of the room, and Tony went through some of his favorite equations to give Jarvis plenty of time to have left the house.

Even while his mind desperately tried to conjure distractions, his hands clenched on top of his worktable. The scabbed over cuts on his palms throbbed dully at the clench, and that pain was grounding. Helped him to breathe a little easier. Helped him not think about the people that would be surrounding the graves of his parents, wiping away fake tears and lying through their teeth about their grief. He waited until his breathing was steady and even before he started working again, and his hands worked flawlessly despite how much he had pushed through the initial injuries. He was following his father’s blueprints, working to construct everything that his father had been working on, in an attempt to find what was worth killing for.

✪  
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✪

Tony left the destroyed garage behind him as he walked across the manicured lawn, bypassing all vehicles and instead just walking. The thin layer of sweat coating his skin cooled immediately in the cold air, probably should have pulled a jacket on over his tee shirt, but the quick swig from the bottle clenched in his fist warmed him up. Walking was an inconvenience and much slower than driving, but even he knew that he’d had too many drinks to drive. The walking didn’t help his bruised and aching body, probably shouldn’t have lost control and gone on a violent rampage inside of a garage filled with metal scraps on every surface, but it wasn’t like he’d had that many options. Aside from maybe a bicycle.

“Need to start working on a self-driving car. Make that priority number one,” he mumbled to himself as he walked. Of course, nothing came before his current project. It had been a week since the funeral, and he was still no closer to figuring out what Howard had been working on. “Six feet under and I’m still disappointing him.”

The rest of the walk was quiet, and Tony slipped between the small amount of space between the iron gates of the cemetery. It was so late that he was the only living thing around, and he easily maneuvered down the stone pathways. This was his first time visiting the cemetery since the funeral, but he knew where he was going. Howard was a planner and a control freak, and he had picked out the family plots years ago. On a rare visit home from boarding school, Tony had accompanied Howard to make sure the plot was up to Howard’s standards. He remembered exactly where it was, because he’d had nightmares for months afterwards from seeing his mother’s name engraved on a headstone. Funny how those nightmares had nothing on reality.

By the time he reached the familiar headstones, the bottle was half-empty and he could barely feel the ground under his feet. He collapsed next to the graves and drug himself up into a sitting position, and the irony was not lost on him as he leaned back against a headstone over an empty grave. Because Howard was a control freak, which meant that Tony’s own plot was next to his parents’. There was more empty space in this section of the cemetery, for future Starks no doubt, but Tony was the only Stark left now and was left to prop up against his own headstone. He raised his bottle towards his parents’ graves, saw where the fresh dates had been carved into the stone, and took deep pulls from the bottle until his chest burned.

There were hundreds of things that he wanted to say. Apologies, explanations, and everything mixed between the two. Accusations and blame were brewing in his thoughts as well, but he couldn’t get any of the words out. He wanted to tell his mother that he was sorry for not taking care of himself and that he was going to be better, but he couldn’t lie to her now. He wanted to demand answers from his father or maybe even to ask him for some help just this once, but the words died in the fire trapped in his throat. He wanted to scream at the universe for taking his parents away. In the end, he just held onto his bottle a little tighter and laughed until tears soaked his face.

✪  
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✪

Tony stumbled out of the nest of blankets that he had been wrapped up in, looked around enough to recognize his own room, and then groaned as he stood next to his messy bed. He dropped his head into his hands as his hangover caused his temples to pulse hotly, and his stomach rolled as he tried to keep himself from swaying. The last thing he remembered was sitting in the cemetery, feeling the cold on his skin and the alcohol-induced heat in his veins, and then nothing. He must have passed out, and someone must have brought him back home. When he lifted his head and really listened, he couldn’t hear anything so whoever it was hadn’t stuck close by. Jarvis wouldn’t have been able to drag his dead weight around, so it had to be someone else.

The thick smell of bacon greeted him as he got closer to the kitchen, and he paused just inside of the room for a moment. Rhodey was at the stove, and the slight tensing of his shoulders meant that he had heard Tony enter the kitchen. Rhodey didn’t say anything though, so Tony shrugged and drug his feet across the tiles. He only made it as far as the small table in the kitchen, because the family always ate in the dining room, and his legs gave out as soon as he got the old wooden chair under him. He could smell coffee too, but it was on the other side of the kitchen and decidedly out of his reach for the moment. Rhodey was being surprisingly quiet as he cooked, Rhodey always talked while cooking, and Tony propped his head up with his fist to stop himself from headbutting the table.

“When’d you get in?” he asked just loud enough for Rhodey to hear. Even that little bit of volume caused the pain in his head to spike, and he clenched his eyes shut against the sudden wave of nausea.

“Last night. I was going to wait to come over until today, but Jarvis called and said he couldn’t find you,” Rhodey explained without turning around. Tony kept his eyes closed and thought of how to reply to that. _Shit_. He was going to have to apologize to Jarvis for worrying him. “You should have called me, Tony.”

“And said what? _Hey, Rhodes, my parents just got assassinated and I’m swimming in a bottle. Wanna catch a movie sometime?_ Seems a little ridiculous to me. How’d you get leave anyway?” Rhodey was supposed to be on some kind of training mission with the Air Force, so what was he doing stateside?

“Wait, assassinated?” Oh, he hadn’t meant to let that slip. He shrugged to himself, because Rhodey still hadn’t turned around, and forced his eyes to focus on the table. There was a newspaper sitting on the middle of the table, and he reached out with a somewhat steady hand to pull it closer.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Rhodey. I know you’re more than a pretty face.” Rhodey finally looked over his shoulder, and Tony raised a brow at the confused expression on his face. “You know Howard was more than just the founder of Stark Industries.”

“Still don’t think you’re supposed to give out top secret information like that,” Rhodey said and returned his focus to the bacon. Tony had the rolled up newspaper in front of him, but his fingers were just tapping against the paper as he tried to get his thoughts in some kind of proper order.

“I trust you not to sell me out to Nazis,” Tony said absently. If he pressed down hard enough, the ink on the paper would smear against his fingertips. He kept his touch light and swallowed against the rising sickness in his gut.

“I guess HYDRA hasn’t been completely beaten down then,” Rhodey sighed.

“Despite Cap’s best efforts, no.” The bitter tone just seemed to slip out, which Tony instantly felt guilty over. Captain America was an actual hero, and the historical figure didn’t deserve Tony’s hangover fueled bitterness. Besides, it wasn’t the Captain’s fault that Howard had dedicated his life to both finding the missing hero and wiping out his ultimate enemy. (If his thoughts were still circling, Tony would think about how that dedication led to Howard getting killed by the very organization that he had worked so hard to destroy. Tony’s thoughts weren’t circling though. He was too hungover for that.)

“Tell me you’re not going to do something stupid.” Tony sat up a little straighter as Rhodey walked over with a steaming cup of coffee, newspaper momentarily forgotten, and he could see Rhodey rolling his eyes as Tony started making grabby hands. “I mean it, Tony. Nothing stupid.”

“I’m a genius so everything I do by default is not-stupid,” Tony pointed out and took the cup. Pure black with no tampering, absolutely perfect.

“Just tell me you’re not going to join a super spy agency,” Rhodey said and stayed still until Tony looked up at him.

“I cannot be contained,” Tony stated. He had a dozen reasons for why he would never join SHIELD, but Rhodey didn’t need a bullet list. Just a reassurance, which he had now so that he could move back to the bacon before it burned. “I am going to take over Stark Industries.”

“Of course you are,” Rhodey groaned.

“Called Obie yesterday. We’re going to start strategizing next week for the takeover.” He could hear Rhodey grumbling under his breath as he started cracking eggs, and he took a long scalding sip of coffee before speaking again. “It already has my name on it.”

“You’re only twenty-one, Tony. Don’t you think that’s too young to run a company?” Tony held back his reactive commentary, because Rhodey was cooking him breakfast and he didn’t want to piss him off, and thought it over.

“Howard created two things worth a damn, SHIELD and Stark Industries. SHIELD isn’t my responsibility. I’m not a soldier, not like you or any of the agents. I can do more at SI. I _will_ do more.” Tony didn’t need any extra money; he could happily spend the rest of his life tinkering away on his own, but the thought of someone else running the company with his name on it chafed.

“You can wait at least. Give it a couple of years.” Tony huffed instead of replying, and he thought Rhodey started whisking the eggs a little too harshly after the dismissive sound. After a few minutes, Rhodey dropped the bowl with the eggs on the counter and turned around to glare right at Tony. “I picked you up out the cemetery last night. Had to carry you because you passed out. Next to your parents’ graves. You need to take some time to-”

“-to what? Grieve? Mourn? _Fuck_ that.” He wanted to get to his feet, to scream until he got his point across, but his stomach was already clenched painfully tight while his legs felt like jelly. Sitting and talking quietly was best for now. “I’m going to run my company, and I’m going to do what Howard never could.”

_“You will never accomplish anything!”_

“I’m going to get rid of HYDRA. I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to do, I’m going to _erase_ them.” Tony was a genius. Surely he could find a way to wipe their very existence from the universe.

When Tony glanced up, Rhodey was looking at him with such an open expression that Tony stopped breathing for a second. It reminded him of Jarvis’s face, when Tony told him about the accident that hadn’t been at all accidental. It was just pure grief, something just so achingly sad that it hurt to look at, but Tony couldn’t make himself look away. Not even when Rhodey abruptly looked away and turned his back, and Tony could read body language easily enough to tell that Rhodey was wiping at his eyes. Tony just didn’t understand _why_ Rhodey was reacting like that. He didn’t want to ask either, so he reached for the newspaper to distract himself.

“Puzzling through the crossword?” Rhodey asked several minutes later. Tony was aware of a full plate of breakfast being set in front of him and of Rhodey sitting down in the chair across from him with his own plate, but it was a very distant awareness as he continued to stare at the picture on the front of the newspaper.

“I’m front page news,” Tony announced. Being front page news wasn’t a new experience, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the picture. Not even after Rhodey snatched it from his hands. The imprint of the picture was burned into his brain apparently, because he could still see it clearly.

“Soulless scum suckers,” Rhodey muttered and threw the paper on the ground. It was such an unexpected reaction that it shocked a laugh out of Tony, but he could still see the black and white image of himself. Curled up around an empty bottle next to the large headstone that only showed the Stark family name at the top of it.

“Thanks for this, buddy,” Tony said before digging in. He knew that Rhodey still had a lot that he wanted to say, but all of that could wait. For now, this was enough.

**12 DECEMBER 1992**

Tony stepped out of the back door of the club and greedily sucked down air, and he shivered in the warm air as his sweaty clothes stuck against his skin. He had lost himself in the moving bodies, letting the mixture of alcohol and loud music drown out his thoughts, until it became too much. Too much contact, too much noise, too much overloading his senses. Finding the back door had been easy, years of lessons on always knowing where the exits were in every building he entered coming into play, and now that he could breathe easier he felt sick. Too many days of drinking without pause. Too many nights of losing himself in crowds and sensations. His body was protesting, but his body needed to mind its own damn business.

“Stark!” Bleary eyes looked around the…where was he? An alley? He groaned at being a cliché as a couple of guys stalked closer to him, and Tony had seen that angry expression enough to know what was about to happen. Muscle memory should help him, despite his inebriated state, but he knew this wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Let me guess. I ruined a life and you want some kind of revenge,” Tony drawled out. The words were clear without any slurring, which he thought was impressive considering he couldn’t really remember the last time he had been sober.

“You think you’re so smart,” one of the guys said.

“Please, just punch me already. I can’t handle this kind of weak smack talk.” The two men’s faces were turning red in the dull lights shining through the alley, and he could feel the heat in his bloodstream sinking into his stomach. “Come on already! Some of us have better places to be!”

The first punch was so telegraphed that even his whiskey soaked mind picked up on it, but he let the punch land on his jaw and moved with the momentum so that he could barely feel the impact. He rolled with it and struck out, limbs heavy and moving sluggishly, and the hit doubled the guy over. That was around the time that the second guy got involved, and everything became a little blurry around the edges after that. He’d been trained to fight when he was younger, hard-won lessons that were managing to save him from spitting out teeth, and he could hear himself laughing as more hits started to land. The pain wasn’t a concern, he could barely even feel it, but the laughter was knocked out of him as his back hit the ground. There was a boot coming towards his face, and he was still grinning as he waited for impact. Except, the boot never connected.

His head rolled against the ground as he tried to get a good look at what was going on, but it was all still blurry around the edges. His eyes narrowed into squinting as he forced himself to focus, and he could see one guy fighting off the two that had stopped him for a friendly chat. Despite being outnumbered, the new guy easily dominated the fight. Even as drunk as he was though, Tony could tell that he was holding back. The other two weren’t beaten into bloody pulps, and he snorted back a laugh as the newcomer literally tossed the guys out of the alley with warnings to get lost before he called the cops. A smile remained on his face as the guy walked back over to him and then bent over to get a clear look at his face, and he looked confused. Probably because Tony could feel blood on his face while he grinned like he’d won the fight.

“You alright, buddy?” the guy asked him.

“Peachy,” Tony slurred. Definitely slurring now, from the combined week-long bender and several hits to the head.

“Sure you are,” the guy said in an extremely sarcastic tone that he immediately respected. The guy couldn’t see his approving smile though because he was too busy checking the alley, but Tony didn’t think there was much to see. The guy seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he shrugged before looking down at Tony again. “Okay, on your feet.”

Tony’s insides flipped all around as the guy hooked his hands under Tony’s pits and heaved him off the ground, and the guy had to keep a tight hold on him because his legs weren’t cooperating. He didn’t know how much time passed as he worked on getting his legs to accept his weight, but the guy was patient through it all. His alleyway savior didn’t release him until they were both sure that Tony could stand under his own power, and he twisted at the hips to grin at the guy in triumph. He could tell that the guy wanted to laugh but wasn’t letting himself, which was his loss. Tony laughed even though his entire body protested the movement.

“Thank you, oh so very much,” Tony said and reached out. He was aiming to pat the guy’s shoulder but missed, hand pawing at the guy’s face instead, and the guy knocked his hand away. Tony rolled with the movement, letting himself spin around, and then set off down the alleyway towards the street. He had just reached the street and started walking in the direction of his hotel when his legs became uncooperative again, and he heard himself yelp as he started falling.

“Really, kid?” the guy grunted as he managed to catch him. The exasperated tone reminded him so much of Rhodey that he felt nostalgia clawing at him, and he groaned as the guy moved him around. A moment later, Tony had an arm slung around the guy’s shoulder while an arm hooked around his waist kept him from falling on his face.

“’m not a kid,” he grumbled too many minutes later. The guy huffed, a completely humorless laugh, and kept dragging Tony down the sidewalk. Tony was now studying the side of the guy’s face and being completely ignored, and he could feel something trying to break through the haze clouding his mind. “Do I know you?”

The guy finally turned to look at him, and Tony knew that he looked familiar. Maybe it was someone that he’d seen in passing a few times? The answer was _right there_ , but it kept slipping away from him and was really starting to become annoying. The guy was studying him now too, even while navigating their steps, but there wasn’t any recognition. Wait. There wasn’t _any_ recognition. Did this guy have no idea who he was? That couldn’t be right. Everyone knew who he was, for a variety of reasons. As the genius mind behind Stark Industries. The billionaire orphan who drank too much. A playboy who couldn’t stay out the gossip rags. _Everyone_ knew who he was. Except, apparently, for the guy lugging him around like he was cheap luggage.

“Don’t think so,” the guy finally answered with a shrug. It was the memory of the guy punching out the guys in the alley paired with his grumpy face that Tony finally recognized, and Tony was so excited about figuring it out that he nearly toppled them both over as he started shaking the guy.

“Happy!” The guy’s brows shot up in surprise, but Tony just plowed on. “You’re the boxer guy! I took Rhodey to a match, and you were the guy! They called you Happy, but I’ve never seen you smile. I got saved by a boxer!”

“Retired boxer,” the guy said. No, _Happy_ said.

“Boo,” Tony moaned and let the guy take more of his weight. He was a boxer, retired or not, so he could handle holding up a little more of Tony’s deadweight.

“Knocking out people isn’t a longtime career plan.” They were dodging around people, but everyone seemed completely disinterested. Which suited Tony just fine. The best thing about New York City was that no one gave a shit or paid attention to a couple of guys weaving down the sidewalk.

“What’d you leave boxing for then?” They were getting closer to the hotel he was staying in, and he really should buy a place in the city. He was here often enough, and hotels were exhausting.

“Security work. Was on my way home when I found you getting your ass kicked.”

“Hey! I was doing okay!” Tony immediately protested. Happy just huffed again, clearly disagreeing, which led to Tony explaining all of the ways that he was wrong. That lasted all the way until they reached the hotel, where Tony dug his heels in before they could be seen by anyone close to the main doors.

“What are you doing now?” Happy asked and glared over at him. Yeah, there was that tone that made him miss his best friend. He didn’t even know where Rhodey was right now, other than being on some kind of top secret mission. Tony _hated_ top secret missions.

“Back way,” Tony explained and leaned in the right direction.

“I should just dump you at the front door,” Happy grumbled but kept carrying him. They moved around the side of the hotel, to where Tony knew there was an employee’s entrance.

“Rhodey keeps telling me I need a babysitter.” The words slipped out without permission, and he thought Happy might have actually laughed at that. Just a quick chuckle but still a laugh. Tony was counting it as a laugh anyway. Tony usually argued with Rhodey about that, but right now the idea wasn’t a bad one. It just needed a little tweaking. He didn’t need a babysitter. What he really needed was, “Security! I need security! A bodyguard!”

“What are you babbling about?” Happy got the employee door open and pulled him inside, and Tony directed them by lunging whichever way they needed to go and getting caught before he could really injure himself. Injure himself more.

“You know, like that movie that just came out. You can be my Kevin Costner!” Tony exclaimed. Happy’s face was full of confusion, and Tony rolled his eyes with immediate regret when it made the hallway spin. The world didn’t calm down until they were in the elevator, and Tony dropped his bruised and bloody face against Happy’s shoulder. “Top floor. You should be my bodyguard.”

“Already got a job,” Happy reminded him.

“I pay better.”

“You don’t even know how much I’m making now.”

“Still guarantee that I pay better.”

“I’m not quitting my job.”

“Great benefits too.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re kinda bossy?”

“Get to travel, meet all kinds of people, and you’d get to hang out with me!”

“How often do people try to punch you in the face?” Happy asked as the elevator stopped. Tony pulled back so that his face wasn’t smushed against Happy’s shoulder and grinned up at him, because it sounded like Happy was considering it now.

“Do you want a graph?” Happy was studying him while they walked inside of the penthouse, probably taking in the darkening bruises and drying blood.

“Tell you what, kid.”

“Call me that again and I will fight you.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, when you’re sober and after I sleep.”

“That’s so far away,” Tony whined right before being dropped onto his bed. Hands moved him around until he was lying on his stomach, and he felt a hand lightly patting between his shoulder blades.

“Sleep,” Happy told him. Tony wanted to argue, he really did, but the bed was soft and his eyelids were heavy. So he flapped a hand in Happy’s general direction and let himself pass out.

✪  
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✪

Tony woke up with his entire head pounding, face included, and immediately groaned into the pillow he’d apparently been drooling on. For some reason, Tony didn’t have the luxury of getting blackout drunk. It didn’t matter how much he drank or for how long, he could always remember everything with perfect clarity. As far as superpowers went, it sucked. Tony wanted a trade. Because he could remember dancing until he felt overcrowded, stumbling outside into an alley, and then getting into a fight. In an alley. Peggy would be so disappointed in him. Rhodey would be disappointed and concerned, but it wasn’t like he’d really lost. Because…Happy!

The blanket slipped off of him as he pushed himself up, but his stomach rolled so he dropped right back down. It took him a minute before he could get his eyes open again, and he used that minute to think over the previous night. The retired boxer had been a huge help. Had stepped in before Tony would need medical assistance, which was an inconvenience that he never liked dealing with. The guy hadn’t just left him in the alley or simply called an ambulance to deal with him either; he had basically carried Tony all the way to his hotel room, and he had talked to Tony like he was just anybody else.

His eyes cracked open, and he blinked blearily at the bedside table. The only immediate thing that he recognized was the bottle of water, taken from the mini-fridge in the other part of the room, and he wiggled his way up the bed to see what was behind the bottle of water. Looked like a bottle of…Advil? Tony didn’t have any over-the-counter pain relievers, and he didn’t think that the hotel room was stocked with them either. When Tony finally got his arm out from under his body and grabbed the bottle, he popped the top off and looked inside. No seal and no cotton, so it had been opened before. He dropped the bottle back onto the table and noticed the note, and he pinched the paper taken from a hotel notepad between two fingers and held it where he could read it.

_Advil is mine. Take one for your head and drink the whole bottle of water. If you were serious about the job, give me a call._

There was a number written under that, and Tony smiled even though it made his face ache. He maneuvered himself around until he was propped up by the pillows and could start drinking on the water, and he started making plans as he took mid-sized sips. He’d have to do a background check first, obviously. He couldn’t hire someone to be his bodyguard without finding all of the skeletons in his closet, but he had a good feeling about the guy. So after that, he could call Happy and set up a meeting. Lunch? Meetings with food were always good. Then after he got Happy to say yes, he could call Rhodey and tell him that he had an official babysitter so that Rhodey could stop worrying about him so much.

“Time to get this done,” Tony decided and finished off the water. He was sure that he’d have a bodyguard by the end of the day.

✪  
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✪

It was two days after Christmas when Tony stumbled out of his workshop to hear two voices coming from the kitchen, and he stopped to run his hands through his hair before continuing forward. Right before walking into the kitchen, he caught the smell of bacon and felt his stomach growl in response. Damn Pavlovian response. Happy was a great cook but wouldn’t make anything unless he was sure that Tony wasn’t going to be wasteful, so there was no way that Happy was cooking when Tony had been locked in his workshop for the past few days. So the owner of the second voice had to be the one cooking, but Tony hadn’t been able to hear more than a rumble. Not clear enough to figure out who it was, and now they were being quiet.

“You can’t let him lock himself away in the workshop.” That was Rhodey! That was definitely Rhodey! Tony stopped just outside of the kitchen doorway to listen, because he hadn’t thought about what it would be like when his best friend met his bodyguard and now wanted to study their interaction before throwing himself into the equation.

“You know that he’s an adult, right? He’s capable of making his own decisions.” Happy sounded almost bored, and there was a rustle of paper which had to mean that Happy was reading the paper.

“Stupid decisions. Don’t be fooled by the genius thing.”

“Certified genius.”

“Certified dumbass. That’s how you got a job.”

“I got a job because he’s good at pissing people off.”

“I’m serious, man. You gotta take better care of him.”

“If I take care of him, he’ll never learn.”

“Talking about me?” Tony asked as walked into the kitchen. Happy ignored him and kept looking at the newspaper, but Rhodey glanced at him before returning his focus to the stovetop. Tony glared over at the kitchen table, where he was sure Happy could feel his dislike of being ignored after being talked about, and moved over towards the stove.

“You look like shit, Tones,” Rhodey told him. He was leaning against the counter next to where Rhodey was cooking, full visibility, and he raised a brow that made Rhodey roll his eyes.

“Missed you too, carebear,” he drawled out. He heard Happy huff at the pet name, but Happy would just have to deal with it. Rhodey was used to the names. Happy, on the other hand, refused to acknowledge anything Tony said when he used anything other than the man’s chosen nickname.

“Thought you said that guy was a good babysitter,” Rhodey said and motioned with his head towards the table.

“Bodyguard,” Happy immediately corrected.

“I haven’t been punched at all since Happy came to work,” Tony reported with a grin. Then he tacked on, “He keeps away the pushier reporters too and gets me out of meetings.”

“You interrupt his meetings?” Rhodey was glaring over his shoulder, and Tony could see Happy glaring over the top of the newspaper as he hefted himself up to sit on the counter.

“Only when he starts annoying the board members,” Happy explained. When Rhodey looked at him for confirmation, Tony nodded because it was the absolute truth. Happy always seemed to know when to step in and remind Tony of a very important meeting, which meant that they either went to get food or found a private place for Tony to box. Either way, Tony got to run his mouth and purge his mind of idiocy.

“He’s still on probation,” Rhodey decided. Happy huffed at that, Tony stole a piece of bacon, and Rhodey continued cooking enough breakfast for three people. Not bad for a first meeting.

**27 SEPTEMBER 1994**

“You’re too young for this,” Tony said quietly. The private nurse had been shooed away hours ago, and Happy was sitting in a chair in the den. It was quiet here in the back of the house, except for the sound of the machines surrounding the narrow bed.

“I’m over eighty, Mister Stark,” Jarvis pointed out. Tony’s chair was pulled up right next to the bed, both hands holding onto one of Jarvis’s, and his back ached from being in the same bent over position for so long.

“Want me to create a youth elixir? I’ve got a free weekend.” Tony tried to smile but didn’t think he pulled it off, but the little comment did get Jarvis to laugh quietly. The laughter didn’t last long though, and Tony nearly squirmed in his chair as Jarvis’s expression suddenly turned serious.

“I know this will be difficult for you,” Jarvis started.

 _“I’m not the one that’s dying,”_ Tony thought as he looked down. Jarvis’s hand looked frail between his.

“Try not to mourn for me too much. I’m going to be okay. I’ll be with my Ana,” Jarvis finished quietly. Too quietly. His breaths were coming slower. It would still be another couple of hours before Peggy made it, but Tony wasn’t sure if she was going to make it in time.

“Tell her I said hey.” Tony couldn’t tell if he wanted to cry or scream. It’d been a year since Ana passed, and he had known then that it wouldn’t be long before Jarvis followed her. “And let her know that I’ll find someone that can do her recipes justice.”

“Oh, Tony.” He startled a little as shaking fingers brushed over his cheek, because he was crying. When did he start crying? He reached up to grab that hand and pull it away, while telling himself to hold it together.

“Maybe you’ll run into Mom too. Don’t tell her about the scandals. Oh! You can tell her about the Maria Stark Foundation, now that it’s up and running,” Tony hurried out. He knew that he was babbling but couldn’t seem to stop himself, but Jarvis was smiling now and didn’t look so concerned.

Tony held onto that tangent with an iron grip and continued to talk about all of the plans he’d been drafting up for the new foundation, ways to give back to the world so that he could add the title of philanthropist to his list of accomplishments, and Jarvis seemed to ease back into the pillows the longer that Tony talked. The holds on his hands started to loosen, but Tony didn’t want to let go. What he really wanted to do was crawl into the bed and lay next to Jarvis, like he did when he was a kid and had a nightmare. Tony had never went to Howard or Maria when he had a nightmare, even if they were both home or if only one of them was home. He didn’t think they would have turned him away, his mother certainly wouldn’t have, but he had never been able to go to them when he was scared in the dark. Jarvis and Ana had never complained about him running to their room. Had instead just pulled him into the bed and talked quietly until he’d drifted off to sleep. This seemed to be a reverse of that. Tony was the one talking now, while waiting for Jarvis to close his eyes.

“You look just like him.” Tony cut himself off mid-sentence and stared down at Jarvis, and a tiny part of him felt betrayed. How many people had told him over the years that he looked like his father? Too many. Not Jarvis or Ana though. Neither of them had ever said anything even close to that, because they had lived with the Starks and knew what his relationship with Howard was like.

“Not you too,” Tony groaned. Jarvis smiled, a quick and sad thing, and Tony could feel something cold clawing at his insides.

“He didn’t hate you, Tony.”

“We really don’t have to talk about this.” They never needed to have this conversation, really. Jarvis gave him a look, and Tony knew him so well that he could read it perfectly. Now was the only time to have this conversation, because Jarvis was running out of time. So Tony kept his mouth shut and waited for Jarvis to say what he needed to say. When Jarvis just kept looking at him expectantly, Tony sighed and slumped over a little more before speaking. “He didn’t hate me, okay, but he didn’t love me either.”

“He did.” Tony rolled his eyes and then immediately winced at the automatic response. Now wasn’t the time to be so contrary.

“I’ll take your word for it.” Most days, Tony tried not to think about Howard. Even while running the company that Howard built and dodging the agency that he helped build, he tried not to think about him.

“Howard loved you, Tony, but I suspect that he hated himself more.” Okay, that made no sense. Howard cared more about himself than anyone else, so that was a little hard to believe.

“Then tell him I said all’s forgiven if you run into him too,” Tony decided on. Not that he forgave Howard for being a horrible father, but he wasn’t going to tell Jarvis that. Not now.

“I’m proud of you, Tony,” Jarvis told him quietly. Proud of him for what? Keeping SI afloat? Pretending that SHIELD didn’t exist? Failing to figure out what Howard had been working on to get him killed? Not finding any HYDRA bases? For being a permanent fixture in gossip rags?

Tony started talking again, about anything and everything. Told Jarvis about how Rhodey had twisted his ankle playing a game of tag football and had to sit out a training exercise, that in exchange for Happy teaching him how to properly box he was showing him simple yoga moves, and all about the house he was building in Malibu with a large workshop. He even started talking about his plans for future projects, about the finishing touches he was putting on his new bot that he was thinking about naming Butterfingers, and the disaster of the last board meeting when he told everyone that he was taking time away from weapons to work on artificial intelligence. He talked until his throat was dry and then just continued on, because he could see that Jarvis’s breaths were becoming slower. His grip was completely lax now, no strength at all, but Tony couldn’t let go. So he held on and talked himself hoarse, even after the slow breaths stopped completely.

**19 FEBRUARY 1997**

Tony slowed his steps as he caught sight of the lone figure standing up ahead, and he briefly considered running back to where Happy was waiting with the car. Briefly. A few seconds and then the thought was gone. Tony Stark was many things, but he wasn’t a coward. So he squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and continued down the stone pathway. He wasn’t looking magazine pretty today, and his old worn-out shoes barely made any sound as he walked. Still, his steps could have been completely silent and his approach still would have been known. He kept an even pace as he walked, until he was standing in front of the headstone that had two names carved into it. Edwin and Ana Jarvis, died one year apart. Behind him and to the left were his parents’ headstone.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Peggy said quietly. When Tony worked up the nerve to look over at her, she was smiling just a little at him.

“It’s their anniversary,” Tony answered with a shrug. No matter what had been going on with the Stark family, Jarvis and Ana never worked on their anniversary.

“I’m talking about your little Valentine’s Day incident. How do you keep talking your way out of jail time?” Peggy was definitely teasing him as she smiled up at him, and Tony felt a swell of fondness at the familiar tone and look. So he returned the smile and then amped it up by putting a little sparkle in his eyes.

“Must be that Stark charm,” he drawled. Peggy’s head tipped back as she laughed, silver curls tipping over her collar and lines appearing in her face, and she was beautiful in the winter sunshine.

“It must be,” she laughed and reached over to lace her arm through his. “Honestly, Tony. How do you manage to create such chaos? Do you ever sleep?”

“I’m a genius. I’ve outsmarted the need for sleep,” he huffed. Peggy laughed again, beautiful and nostalgia inducing, and Tony folded his hand over the one wrapped around the bend of his elbow.

“I miss them,” Peggy said quietly. She was looking at the headstone in front of them, but he knew that she was talking about his parents too. They were all gone now. Howard and Maria. Jarvis and Ana. Daniel had been gone for going on five years now, so did that mean Peggy was next? Was that who Tony was going to lose next?

“Tell me a story, Aunt Peggy.” He hadn’t called her that since he was a kid, but he could see her eyes softening before she leaned her head against his shoulder and started speaking.

“One time, when Howard was being exceptionally pigheaded, I took Jarvis with me on a mission,” she started.

Tony listened to the story, still amazed even as an adult at all the insane things the people who had been his babysitters had gotten up to, but it was fun to listen to. He could clearly hear the excitement in Peggy’s voice as she talked about the many dangers they had faced during just one mission, and he counted at least a dozen instances where he nearly never had either Peggy or Jarvis in his life. When Howard’s name came up close to the end of the story, swooping in to save the day, he was already smiling so much that he didn’t let the mention ruin his good mood. Not when Peggy already sounded so happy as she told the story. He listened, he laughed, and he wished that it could never end but accepted that it would soon.

The story did end, on a happy note with Ana threatening to throttle the three of them when they returned home, and the two of them said quiet goodbyes and promised to visit again soon. Peggy let him escort her through the cemetery, and he managed to talk her into joining him for dinner during the walk. Happy saw them coming and hurried to get the door open, completely for Peggy’s benefit because he kept telling Tony that he’d only get the door for him after he got a raise, and Tony’s breathing became a little easier once they pulled away from the cemetery. He trusted Happy to drive him, and talking to Peggy was a distraction from his usual spiraling thoughts that always seemed to occur when he visited the cemetery.

 _“It’s going to be okay,”_ Tony told himself. Because failure wasn’t an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was meant to cover Tony's life right up until the start of _Iron Man 1_. I got a little carried away, but the next chapter is a little over halfway done. I'll be posting these as I finish them, because I never know when I'll be able to write.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. I Am Not A Role Model

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony helps out a baby agent and meets his hardest working employee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has supported this story! I really wasn't expecting it, and I can't even explain just how thankful I am that people seem to enjoy my rambling way of writing a story. So, thank you!
> 
> I have a lot of free time now, so I should be able to keep the updates regular. I have this story entirely planned out and have started planning out the sequels, so there's still plenty more to come.
> 
> Also! I am on tumblr, [@butcherofblackwater](https://butcherofblackwater.tumblr.com/), if you want to come talk Marvel or just say hi.

****

**04 JULY 1998**

Tony was sitting in the kitchen, absently drinking a cup of coffee while writing out notes, and he couldn’t focus on any one specific project and was instead creating notes for several different projects. It made his notes a mess that only he could follow, but that worked just fine for him. These were all personal projects anyway. He’d take them to the board if anything came of them, if he thought they could be useful to the public, but for now it was just little things for him to play around with. Ideas that had been jamming up his thoughts and that needed to be worked out, before he drove himself crazy with the potential. So he was writing with one hand and holding his nearly full coffee cup with the other when he was rudely interrupted, and he glared up at the doorway as he listened to footsteps getting closer. Except, those weren’t just Happy’s heavy footsteps. There was a second pair, quieter.

“Get out,” Tony said as soon as he saw the person walking calmly behind Happy. His _bodyguard_ just rolled his eyes and moved over to the coffeepot, which gave Tony a perfect view of his very unwanted house guest.

“Good to see you too, Stark,” Fury said and dropped into the seat across from him. Happy, with his own cup of coffee and a piece of toast clenched between his teeth, waved as he left the room.

“Traitor!” Tony called after him. Fury made some kind of sound that might have implied humor and leaned over to get a look at Tony’s notes, and he pulled them closer to his side of the table as he continued to glare.

“Hard at work? I was expecting to see something a little more interesting. Not throwing a party tonight?” Fury asked as he made a show of looking around. Tony wasn’t planning an Independence Day Party, but he had his pick of patriotic parties to attend. He still hadn’t decided on which one to go to, assuming he went to one at all.

“You’re not invited.” Tony took a long drink of his coffee and got to his feet, and he walked backwards across the kitchen so that he could keep his eyes on the agent sitting at the table. “I didn’t get you a birthday present either, so why are you here?”

“Got a promotion,” Fury said and smiled. Actually smiled. It was so unnerving that Tony paused before pouring his coffee to raise a brow in question. One little promotion wasn’t enough to make the agent smile like that. He was proved right when Fury continued, “I’m the Director now.”

“Peggy must be so proud,” Tony sniped and poured his coffee. All the way to the brim of the cup. Took a long sip, ignored the burn in his throat, and poured a little more.

“Haven’t told her yet. Thought I’d stop by here first,” Fury said with a very pointed look. Tony walked back to the table without offering Fury any coffee or anything else, and he was thinking over what that look was trying to tell him. Because it couldn’t mean what he thought. Could it?

“You are not serious,” Tony said and dropped back into his seat.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Fury asked and then grinned. There was a moment where Tony considered throwing his steaming hot coffee in the agent’s face, in the _Director’s_ face, but that seemed like a disservice to the coffee.

“My answer hasn’t changed.”

“You were talking out of grief that day.”

“Even in grief, I’m a genius. You think my answer is emotional?” Tony’s elbows pressed hard against the table as he leaned forward, and Fury’s fingers laced over his stomach as he relaxed back in his own chair.

“After what had just happened, with your-”

“I’m gonna stop you there. You being the head honcho of super spies will not stop me from throwing you out. Choose your next words very carefully.” Tony couldn’t remember the last time that he had sounded so serious, but now was the time to be serious.

“Are you telling me that your answer is logical?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

All of Tony’s reasons for never joining SHIELD were the same, unchanged over the years. Howard had wanted him to join the agency, to fight the good fight, and Peggy had even hinted at the same thing when he was younger. (Before the accident that wasn’t an accident.) There was a time when he thought that he was just refusing out of spite, to not give Howard the satisfaction even in death, but that wasn’t it. Surprisingly enough, Howard didn’t have anything to do with his decision. Tony didn’t want to join SHIELD because he wasn’t an agent. Not that he would be an agent if he joined. He wouldn’t be a spy or an agent. He’d spend all of his time in a lab, working _for_ SHIELD. After running Stark Industries, he knew that he’d never be able to simply work for an agency like SHIELD where he would have to be secretive and quiet. Just wasn’t his style.

“Do me a favor then.” Tony narrowed his eyes, because what part of this conversation had Fury thinking that he was owed any kind of favor?

“Why?”

“Because, Stark, it’s my birthday.” Fury still looked far too relaxed and not at all like he’d just been turned down, which meant that Fury had been expecting him to say no. For some reason, following Fury’s expectations made him want to say yes. Which very quickly passed, because not even he was that spiteful.

“What do you want?” Tony asked and drank down half of his coffee. Whatever it was, it was Fury’s real reason for dropping by. So what drove the newly appointed Director to knocking on his door?

“Got a new agent that could use a little tech help,” Fury said in a bored tone. Oh, this really must be something important if Fury was trying this hard to make it seem like it wasn’t.

“What kind of tech help?” he asked after a moment. He wasn’t going to build any kind of specialty tech for SHIELD, like Howard had done. Nearly all SI tech had been shared with SHIELD, but Tony had put an end to that little arrangement. If SHIELD wanted something specific from him, they were going to have to ask for it and explain what they wanted it for.

“Hearing aids.” Fury’s answer caught him so off-guard that all he could do at the beginning was blink in confusion, and half-formed ideas flitted through his thoughts before he pushed them aside to focus.

“I’m not a doctor. You get that, right?” His mind was already trying to draw up plans with his admittedly limited knowledge, even though he hadn’t agreed to do anything.

“Don’t you have a couple of PhDs?”

“None of them are in any medical fields.”

“You saying you _can’t_ do it?”

“You always gotta play dirty?” Fury just kept staring at him, blank expression and not even a small twitch, and Tony really wanted to throw his coffee at the new Director. “Why me?”

“He makes all of our doctors nervous,” was the cryptic answer. It should have annoyed him, but instead it just made him curious.

“Send him over tonight,” Tony decided. The SHIELD doctors had to deal with all kinds of strange injuries, and he wanted to see what kind of person could make them nervous. That had to be code for terrified, didn’t it? Because Fury wouldn’t come to him over a few nervous doctors.

“Inviting an unknown agent to your party?” Tony drained his coffee and then thought about throwing the cup at Fury’s smug face. He didn’t, because the cup was his favorite, but it was a close thing.

“It’s either tonight or six months from now. I’m a very busy person.” He tapped his fingers against the table as he talked, and Fury sighed before dropping his hands and sitting up straight.

“I’ll send him by tonight,” he said as he pushed up to his feet. He started walking from the kitchen, with calm and even steps, and Tony pressed his palms flat against the table as he half rose out of his chair.

“You’re welcome!”

✪  
✪  
✪

_Hey, hey, mama said the way you move_  
_Gon’ make you sweat, gon’ make you groove_

Tony was standing in the scooped out innards of his most recently purchased car, grease smeared over his bare arms and hair wild as he sang along, and sparks lit up as he wielded a small torch. He was doing something that always helped his mind, tearing things apart and building them back better, and it was just what he needed to clear his mind. It was really too bad that he’d lost track of time while working, and that he completely forgot that he told Happy to expect a guest and to just send him down to the workshop whenever he showed up. So when Tony turned around mid-verse to see some kid standing in his workshop with a shit-eating grin, it was no surprise that he jumped like he’d been shocked and banged his elbow on a corner of metal.

“Sonofawhore! Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it was rude to sneak up on people?!” Tony yelled over the sound of the music.

“No!” the kid yelled back. Tony hefted himself over the side of the car, moved to a panel on the wall to turn the music down, and propped his hands on his hips as he turned to look at the kid.

“Fury sent you?” When the kid nodded and took another step into the workshop, Tony shook his head and started crafting a way to take Fury down. “You’re like twelve. You can’t be an agent.”

“Sixteen, actually,” the kid shrugged. Like sixteen was any better? When did SHIELD start recruiting teenagers? Tony was definitely going to have words with Fury about this. While he was thinking that out, the kid wandered completely into the workshop and jumped up to sit on one of his worktables. He held up a file in his hand, waved it back and forth, and Tony stomped over to take it from him.

“Your name is Clinton?” Tony asked. The first thing he saw was the kid’s name, Clinton Francis Barton, and the kid’s birthday was right under that. He had turned sixteen barely a month ago.

“Clint,” the kid corrected.

“I’m not calling you that either,” Tony said as he scanned the file. There were medical reports, incomplete ones, but Tony’s eyes narrowed on the data that they had been able to collect. Scans of X-Rays that showed badly healed fractures, with notes that hypothesized a childhood of abuse. The kid’s hearing loss was at eighty percent. He was nearly completely deaf, possibly from abuse. “Jesus, Barton, what the hell happened to you? No, don’t answer that.”

“It’s called life, and I’m over it,” the kid said. He was fiddling with the engine parts that Tony had left on the table, fingers twisting around bits of metal to make them spin, and Tony kept looking until the kid huffed and met his eyes.

“You need me to get you somewhere safe? I can make it so that no one can ever find you, including SHIELD,” Tony said seriously. This kid had been through some seriously fucked up shit, it was written all over his body and had been handed to him in a SHIELD file, and the kid didn’t need to work for SHIELD. Fury had called him an agent, so it wasn’t like he was going to be putzing around in a lab or mailroom.

“Aww, shucks, Mister Stark. You’d really do that for me?” the kid asked with a pronounced accent. There wasn’t any background information in the file, so he didn’t know where the kid was from. The accent was good enough to possibly be real though.

“Don’t be a smartass, Barton,” he said as he walked closer to the worktable. He was still looking at the file, looking over the prints of the hearing aids that SHIELD had crafted for the kid, but he kept some of his attention on the kid’s slowly tensing posture as Tony got closer. So he walked right past the worktable until he could lean back against the front of the car he had been working on.

“You gonna help me or not?” the kid asked a few minutes later. Tony was adding in the research he had done after Fury left to the notes in the file, but he needed to get to his computer. Which was on the worktable across from where Barton was sitting. (Tony couldn’t keep him calling him a kid, not even in his head. If he did, he’d never be able to do this.)

“One condition.” He was already walking over to the table, fingers moving to pull up what he needed, and he glanced up over the top of the monitor to see Barton already looking right at him. Waiting. So he asked, “Why do you wanna work for SHIELD?”

“Short answer or long answer?”

“Short.”

“It’s better than prison.”

“Changed my mind. Gonna need you to expand on that.”

“Too bad, I already answered.”

“If you want ears, you’ll keep talking.”

The workshop was quiet, except for the low sound of the music that was still playing, but Tony was determined not to fold. He held Barton’s stare until the kid _(shit!)_ huffed and looked up at the ceiling, but he started talking while throwing a bolt up into the air and catching it. Since he was talking, Tony started working. It wasn’t easy, he kept faltering whenever Barton surprised him, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t really talk about his childhood. Mentioned that his parents died in a car accident when he was young, and wasn’t that just a kick in the balls? After that, Barton and an older brother were sent to an orphanage. Until they ran away and joined a circus. Tony must have had a reaction to that, because Barton told him to shut the hell up and stayed quiet for a moment before continuing on. Circus work didn’t pay well, what a surprise, but crime did. A lot of crime, big crime, until it all fell apart. Not that Barton really gave him details about _how_ it all fell apart.

“So they drag me out of my cell, cuff me to a table, and this suit walks in,” Barton explained and caught the bolt.

“Fury?” Tony asked and adjusted an alignment.

“Nah, different suit.” Barton paused there, tapped the bolt against his knee, and then shrugged before tossing it up into the air again. “Told me I had two options. Be tried as an adult and go to prison, for way longer than a vacation, or become an agent.”

“Choice between two prisons?” Tony asked.

“If you wanna be negative about it, sure. I’m not an idiot, okay? I was in a shit place, and they’re using that to get a new recruit. They didn’t interview me because I’m something special. They came to me because I was desperate.” Okay, maybe Barton wasn’t just some dumbass kid.

“So SHIELD is better than prison,” Tony reasoned out loud. “You sure you don’t want me to put you into a Stark patented wit-pro?”

“With those two options, the right answer is obvious. That’s not all it is though.”

“Do tell.”

“I wanna do something better, than what I’ve been doing. I’ve been a criminal. Now I wanna see what it’s like on the other side.”

“You want to be a good guy?”

“Sounds dumb when you say it.”

“I don’t think I like you.”

“I think you do, since you haven’t thrown me out.”

“Night’s still young.”

Tony thought over the new information even while he worked, wildly different thoughts running together seamlessly, and it was a lot. The kid was honest, sounded honest anyway, and Tony couldn’t think of a good reason to turn him away. To say no. Seemed like he was set on his new career path. Tony couldn’t send him away with the half-assed hearing aids that SHIELD had scrapped together. His tech knowledge wasn’t really for medical purposes, but he was gathering enough information to start putting everything together. He’d need to order some parts, especially some of the smaller mechanical parts, but he was sure that he could get it done. More importantly, he was sure that he wanted to get it done.

“If you’re gonna be a spy, you should learn not to talk so much or give too much away,” Tony told him. He looked up and caught Barton already looking at him, and he was still tossing the bolt into the air and catching it. Without even looking at it.

“Fury said you could be trusted. Said opening up a little might help get me something better than these pieces of shit.” With the hand not twisting to play catch with a bolt, he reached up to flick his earlobe.

“Oh yeah? What else did Fury say?”

“Said you wouldn’t make something for someone unless you cared. Can’t care about someone you don’t know.” Barton put the bolt down, slipped off the edge of the table, and then walked over to where Tony was sitting behind his computer. Tony forced himself to stop working and look at Barton, and he raised a brow to prompt the kid to say whatever it was that he was holding back. “You know me now, Stark?”

“Come back in two days for your ears,” Tony stated with a grin. Barton’s answering smile made him look like an actual kid, and Tony wanted to hide him away where SHIELD couldn’t fuck him up anymore than he already was.

“Two days? So much for being a genius,” Barton drawled and spun around on his heel. Tony’s laugh was shocked out of him, because for some reason he liked the cocky little shit. Barton was at the doorway when Tony had a thought, so he called out.

“Barton! Favorite color?!”

“Purple!”

Okay, he could work with that.

✪  
✪  
✪

“You are so slow, old man!”

“I’m not even thirty, you brat!”

“Build yourself a walker!”

“After I finish your crib!”

Barton had showed up while Tony was exercising, something he didn’t always have time to do between his work schedule and social obligations, and he’d been running laps around the house. Most of his exercise came from tinkering, but he did enjoy running. He’d nearly had a heart attack when Barton appeared next to him, easily keeping pace, and they were both competitive and had been running for a lot longer than Tony had been planning on. Barton hadn’t managed to pass him for long, they kept overtaking each other, but Tony had a feeling that it was only because the kid was a little shorter. If the kid was still growing and got longer legs, he might be able to outrun Tony someday soon.

The unwanted race ended when Tony deviated from course, back towards his house, and Barton followed behind him at a slower pace. They were down to a more sedate jogging pace as they moved through the house, first to the kitchen to grab bottles of water, and then Tony led the way to his workshop. They were quiet as they regulated their breathing and gulped down water, and Tony instantly moved over to where he had been crafting the hearing aids. He could hear Barton behind him, sounded like he was bouncing on his feet, and Tony looked over his shoulder. Yep, the kid was bouncing in place and grinning like he’d won something.

“All worn out, old man?” Barton asked.

“Keep it up and I’ll take these back.” Tony tapped the worktable next to the box holding the hearing aids, and he watched Barton’s eyes flick down to look at the table before returning to his face. Tony rolled his eyes and picked the box up, and Barton went back to bouncing on the balls of his feet as Tony walked closer to him. “Alright, put ‘em in and we’ll run some tests.”

“They’re purple,” was the first thing Barton said after he handed the box over.

“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Tony had to look away when Barton traced the edges of the box, because the smile on the kid’s face was small and genuine and really fucking heartbreaking. So Tony looked away and moved over to pull up the tests that he’d need to run.

It took a couple of minutes before Barton put the hearing aids in, but Tony didn’t rush him. He actually kept quiet and just hummed a little Zeppelin while he tweaked the tests, because he didn’t want to interrupt the kid’s moment. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from looking up when he heard Barton taking the hearing aids out of the box. He watched as he carefully slipped them into place, snuggled in tight with thin pieces running outside of his ears, and he still felt like he could create models with a little less going on externally. He’d have to work up some plans for better models, but these would work perfectly until he could make some adjustments. They should work perfectly anyway. He’d know for sure once they finished the tests. Right now, he was watching the amazed look on Barton’s face as he looked around the room. Like he was just now hearing the very quiet music playing and the sound of Dum-E whining in the corner. (It took Tony three hours to clean up that last mess, so Dum-E was staying in time-out.)

 _“Ready to test them out?”_ Tony signed. Barton’s eyes widened and then narrowed, and his own hands raised so that he could sign his own question.

 _“You know sign language?”_ Barton already looked shocked, so Tony decided not to tell him that he’d learned how over the past two days.

“What? Like it’s hard?” he asked aloud. Barton smiled again and started bouncing in place, like he had endless reserves of energy, and Tony waved him over closer to the worktable.

“Come on, let’s test the functionality.”

An hour later, Barton had passed all of the tests with flying colors but was still hanging around the workshop. Probably because Tony had ordered several pizzas, and he was actually a little amazed at the amount of food that Barton was putting away. Between taking overly large bites of pizza, Barton started talking about his party trick. Apparently, he’d had a show of his own in the circus as an archer. He’d been so good that he said SHIELD had allowed him to use a bow as his primary weapon, which Tony had immediately laughed at because there was no way that Barton could be serious. Who used a bow as a primary weapon? Barton was insistent though, and Tony couldn’t make himself stop laughing as Barton kept miming shooting a bow.

“I can hit _anything_ ,” Barton said around a mouthful of pizza. Tony was sure that he could see a whole pepperoni in the kid’s mouth, which was disgusting. That was probably why it took him a moment to get the idea.

“Come on. Up, up, up!” Tony yelled and clapped his hands. Barton sat straight up on the couch that he’d been lounging around on and watched as Tony darted around his workshop, because he was sure that he had that bow prototype laying around somewhere. It was a project that had been scrapped, after the practicality had been debated, but he’d kept it around somewhere.

“Is that?” There were quiet footsteps walking towards him, and Tony held out the large compound bow. It was maybe a little too big for the kid, but he’d been bragging about being able to shoot anything so it was worth a try. Right now, Barton was looking at the bow like it was the holy grail and nervously tapping his fingers against his thighs. “Can I?”

“We’re taking this show on the road,” Tony decided and tossed the bow to Barton. He caught it with an easy swipe of his hand, plucked it right out of the air, and Tony clapped before looking for an empty box.

“What do you mean on the road?” Barton asked. There weren’t any empty boxes, so Tony dumped one and then started looking for stuff to use as targets.

“I wanna see you shoot. Impress me and maybe I’ll make a bow just for you,” he answered while filling the box. The light that appeared in Barton’s eyes was pure manic glee, but Tony didn’t regret the words. He liked the kid, really. He was a smartass and probably should have been annoying, but the kid didn’t bother him. Wasn’t overstaying his welcome or anything like that.

So Tony finished filling up the box, located the arrows and handed them over to Barton, and then led the way out of the workshop. The house was quiet as they moved through it, because Happy still had his own place and mostly only showed up when Tony had somewhere to go. Luckily, the sun was still up when they got outside. Tony set up the first target, some old blueprints pressed against some shrubbery, and grinned over at Barton. The kid just rolled his eyes and waved Tony over, and he jogged over to his side and squinted. He was just about to ask if they needed to move a little closer when Barton shot, and he felt his brows shoot up in surprise. He couldn’t tell exactly, but he thought the kid had gotten a bullseye.

After that, it became a game. Tony set up targets that became progressively smaller and smaller, and Barton kept hitting them all. Sometimes after hitting a particularly difficult target, Barton would bow while Tony clapped for him. He decided that stationary targets were clearly too easy, but Barton didn’t even blink when he suggested throwing stuff in the air for him to shoot. Probably because Barton already knew that he’d be able to get them all, which he did. Target after target was shot out of the air, until they ran out of arrows. It was more than just surprise that he felt, even though he was definitely surprised. He mostly felt disbelief, because some of the shots should have been impossible. Yet Barton laughed as he hit all of the impossible targets and then turned so that he could laugh in Tony’s shocked face.

“Yeah, that’s what the suits looked like too,” Barton laughed and then sprawled out on the lawn. Tony dropped down next to him and ignored the tickling feeling of the grass against the back of his neck, and he looked up at the darkening sky while keeping Barton in his peripheral.

“You know some of those were impossible, right?” Tony asked after a moment. He even thought that Barton might have been looking away from the targets a couple of times, but that couldn’t be right.

“Can’t be impossible if I got ‘em,” Barton shrugged.

“Yeah, no, I’m pretty sure some of what you did defied physics. Jesus, Barton, what are you?” Tony turned his head to look over at Barton, who turned to look at him and then raised a brow.

“An ex-carnie?” Tony broke and laughed first, and Barton followed after him. They giggled in the grass like children, and the whole time Tony was already making up plans for new bows. After all, he did promise.

**29 DECEMBER 1999**

There was a crash somewhere behind him, a loud clanging that echoed throughout the workshop, and Tony slowly swiveled his chair around to see what was broken this time. Clint’s head turned towards him at the same time that Dum-E’s closed claw turned in his direction, and Clint blinked innocently at him. On the floor between them, there was a pile of scrap metal. The way some of it was piled made it look like the two of them had been stacking the leftovers that Tony had been meaning to clean up, and Tony would put money on Dum-E being the one that knocked everything over. Clint could occasionally be a klutz, but his accuracy was perfect.

“I’m going to revoke your workshop privileges.” Clint opened his mouth to say something, but Tony hurriedly kept talking before Clint could voice the question showing on his face. “I am talking to both of you.”

“Don’t listen to him, Dum-E. Your daddy would never kick you out,” Clint said soothingly while patting the robot’s claw. Tony rolled his eyes before turning back around, but he didn’t argue because Clint was right. Even if Dum-E did destroy things around the workshop, Tony couldn’t remove him. He could hear a few quiet beeps before Clint laughed, followed by the sound of approaching footsteps, and Tony continued to focus on the screen even as he heard Clint stop behind him.

“You’re breathing too loud,” Tony said several minutes later. It was a little unnerving sometimes how Clint could flip a switch to go from unending bouncy energy to being deathly still and silent. Unnerving and impressive. Tony had had over a year to get used to Clint’s more _agent_ side, but he always broke the silence first when he could feel Clint staring at him.

“Am not,” Clint huffed. He moved around Tony’s chair and jumped up onto the table next to where Tony was working, and he flicked his eyes up for just a second before looking back at the screen. Clint must have seen it as a dismissal, because he kicked one foot up onto Tony’s knee and started jostling him. “What are you working on anyway?”

“Artificial intelligence,” Tony mumbled and watched as code continued to flow.

“Why are you working on it now? Come on. I’m bored,” Clint whined and jostled him some more. Tony grabbed his ankle to stop the movements and kept working with his other hand.

“Going to Switzerland for New Year’s so it has to be now,” he answered. Clint groaned and started talking about the SHIELD party that his handler had convinced him to go to, because Clint had a thing about avoiding social interaction with pretty much everyone. He dropped by Tony’s house whenever he had free time, but Tony probably wasn’t the best influence.

“They’re all dumb,” Clint finally stated and crossed his arms. Tony was still typing with one hand because he hadn’t let the kid’s ankle go, and he could feel how tense Clint was despite the overly exaggerated and childish pout that he put up when Tony glanced up at him.

“Uh-huh. Why don’t you really want to go?” Before Clint could say anything, Tony cleared his dry throat and kept talking. “Don’t try to bullshit me, kid. It’s insulting, and I’ll stop making you toys if you keep insulting me.”

Clint’s pout suddenly looked genuine at the thought of not getting anymore specialty bows and arrows, and it reminded him of just how young the agent still was. He knew that Clint wasn’t allowed in the field without his handler, but he was still just a kid. Only seventeen, and his lifetime of trauma didn’t age him like he thought it did. Since Clint was still a kid, Tony did everything he could to make him things to keep him safe. Better weapons, better ears, better protective gear. Occasionally, like now, he tried to help in other ways. Like making the kid talk about his feelings, which really showed just how far Tony had grown over the years. Rhodey was going to be so proud of his progress.

Dum-E beeped as he pushed a bottle of water at Tony’s arm until Tony eventually took it, and he thanked the bot before carefully twisting the cap off while holding the bottle between his knees. Clint kept quiet while Tony drank, and he realized that Dum-E must have heard him clearing his throat and taken initiative to bring him water. Tony hadn’t even needed to ask, and he couldn’t believe that he was feeling proud over the fact that his first bot was learning. (He definitely wasn’t going to tell Rhodey about this. He had listened to too many lectures about not starting a robot rebellion, and he didn’t want to hear another one any time soon. Who was he kidding? He was definitely going to tell Rhodey about Dum-E’s progress the next time they talked.) Tony looked over his shoulder to watch Dum-E roll over to Butterfingers and U, and he was fighting down a smile as he glanced up at the uncharacteristically quiet Clint.

“They don’t like me. I think some of ‘em are scared of me,” Clint mumbled and crossed his arms.

“Scared of some skinny punk that isn’t even old enough to drink?” Tony asked. He had met plenty of agents over the years, more than he ever wanted to meet, and none of them had seemed like the type to be easily scared.

“I’ve heard ‘em talkin’, about how I’m a criminal and have to be kept on a tight leash.” Clint looked way too tense, arms so tightly clenched that it looked painful, and it sounded like he was grinding his teeth.

“Heard them how?” Tony asked and directed his full attention to Clint. Coding could wait, because this was clearly something that had been bothering the kid for a while now. Since he was paying such close attention, he saw the flash of _something_ that overtook Clint’s face. It wasn’t embarrassment, but it was something close. Which was why Tony blurted out, “Do you crawl around in Fury’s vents?”

“It’s not my fault everyone’s security sucks!” Clint immediately defended. Tony tried not to laugh, and that lasted for maybe three seconds before laughter exploded out of him. Clint used his free leg to kick at Tony’s ribs, only hard enough to get his laughter to stutter without actually hurting him, but it was such a ridiculous image. He had caught Clint in his vents several times, because the kid liked breaking in despite being allowed into the house whenever he wanted. So picturing him crawling around the vents of various SHIELD offices was laughter inducing.

“Please never stop crawling through vents.” When Clint just looked at him in confusion, Tony rolled his eyes and briefly squeezed the ankle he was still holding onto. “You’re crawling through a secret agency’s vents. The irony is too great.”

“You have so many problems,” Clint whispered sincerely. Tony smiled while nodding, because the kid wasn’t wrong.

“And so do you. Come on, kid, talk to me. Are you avoiding all of the other agents because you heard a couple of them talking shit about something they know nothing about?” Tony asked. Clint blinked a few times as he thought it over, and Tony forced himself to remain quiet so that the kid could think it through. Keeping quiet was difficult for him though, and he wound up fidgeting. Clint was wearing a pair of old purple shoes instead of his agent-issued boots, and Tony slowly untied the laces before tying them again in an intricate knot.

“Some of ‘em look at me like I’m some kind of animal. Like I wandered in off the street,” Clint forced out. Tony grew up in SHIELD offices, and he had met enough agents over the years to know the stereotype. Buttoned-up, rule following, and distrustful of everyone that didn’t fit into a mold. Clint was an aberration; he had been recruited from a jail cell, and Tony doubted that he had gone through the usual training like all of the other agents.

“Who cares what they think?” Tony threw out. When Clint looked down at him with an annoyed expression, Tony loosely held onto the kid’s ankle again and started tapping the fingers of his other hand against the toes of his shoe. “Most of the agents are idiots. All they do is follow orders and think like some kind of hive mind, but I’ll let you in on a secret.”

“How would you know any SHIELD secrets? Fury says you keep turning him down,” Clint pointed out. It was a good point, Tony did avoid SHIELD at all costs with the exception of Clint, but he was forgetting the obvious.

“My dad helped create SHIELD, remember? I grew up inside that agency, which means that I know things,” Tony reminded him. Clint nodded in acquiescence and then rolled his wrist in the universal _go-on_ gesture. “There are agents hidden inside SHIELD that are actual human beings and not government drones. I doubt anyone has your colorful history, but there are decent people in the agency.”

“Is that right?” Clint drawled out. Tony knocked the back of his hand against the kid’s shin, a light swat that didn’t hurt at all, but it got his point across.

“Your next mission is to find those agents.” Tony grinned up at the kid, because he could tell that Clint was actually thinking about it. “They’re just people.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll think about it,” Clint said and waved his hand in a clear dismissal. It looked like the same flapping gesture that Tony liked to use, which meant that they were spending way too much time together.

“You do that, kid,” Tony said with a light pat to the top of Clint’s shoe. He released the kid altogether and turned back to his screens, to his work, but Clint kept his foot balanced on his knee.

“So what’s in Switzerland?” Clint asked as he started to pick over the parts strewn across the table he was sitting on. Tony was used to Clint messing with everything in the workshop, so he just let him go.

“A good time,” was the flippant answer. He knew the details, the conferences and talks, but there wasn’t anything that he was looking forward to.

“You ever get tired of seeing your face in the news?” Clint sounded truly curious, but Tony just made a quiet huffing sound that might have been a laugh if he had put a little more effort into it.

How was he supposed to explain his public lifestyle to a seventeen year old secret agent? He could barely explain it to himself, because the answer was multilayered. When he was younger and before his parents died, he partied because it actually was fun. Then afterwards, it was one of the few ways that he could lose himself. People always knew who he was and he always had to face himself in the news, but he had been able to turn his thoughts off when he was surrounded by people and his mind was muddled by whatever he could get his hands on. Now he was only a few months away from thirty, and he had slipped into habits that he couldn’t break. Getting drunk and losing himself in people wasn’t enough to quiet his mind anymore, but it did serve as a distraction at times. The main reason he kept it going, kept his name in the papers and scrolling along the bottom of news programs, was because it was better than the alternative. When Tony wasn’t caught in private scandals, the news went after Stark Industries. The least he could do was choose _why_ people were talking about him, and he would rather have the bloodhounds go after his personal life than his company.

“I’m doing the public a service. Who wouldn’t want to see this face on the morning news?” Tony asked and batted his eyelashes. It got the reaction that he wanted, the kid’s head fell back as he laughed, and Tony concentrated on his work. He needed to get this done before leaving.

**15 JULY 2000**

“How injured is injured?” Tony asked as he walked down a dark hallway. His phone was caught between his ear and shoulder as he juggled some paper files around, checking the designations again, and he heard a quiet grunt over the line.

“Just some bumps and bruises,” Clint huffed. He hadn’t seen the kid in nearly a month, which wasn’t all that rare considering their schedules, but he had missed the young agent’s presence in the workshop. Dum-E had been missing him too, and he hated seeing his first bot mope around.

“Don’t make me call Fury and get some real answers. You know I will,” Tony threatened. He managed not to drop anything as he struggled to get a door open and slip inside, and there really needed to be an easier way to navigate the lower levels of Stark Industries. He’d get to work on that first thing in the morning.

“A couple of broken ribs.” He couldn’t put a name to the sound he made, something similar to a yelp, and he heard Clint groaning in frustration. “It’s not that bad! And the gunshot is just a little itchy.”

“Someone shot you?!” His voice echoed in the dark room, the room he had been looking for actually, and he quickly walked over to a line of filing cabinets.

“I shot ‘em back!” Clint yelled and then started coughing. The kid groaned in pain after the coughing fit passed, and Tony dropped the files back into their home before slamming the drawer shut. He turned around and leaned his back against the metal cabinet, and he counted the seconds between his breaths.

“Kid, you can’t run around getting shot. Were you wearing the gear I made?” He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, because it was starting to hit him that the loudmouthed punk who laid around his lab and played with his bots was an active agent that worked for a very dangerous agency.

“Yeah, but I think it got weakened in the explosion.” Clint’s tone was far too casual as Tony’s heart stuttered, and his fingers curled around the phone until his knuckles ached.

“In the explo—I’m calling Fury, and you’re staying put until I come up with something that can withstand an _explosion_. Jesus Christ, kid, you’re gonna make me go gray,” Tony groaned and slumped a little more against the cabinet. He had already proposed new gear for the military, and they had seemed interested. The main thing they wanted was weaponry, but they wouldn’t turn down stronger Kevlar. So he could make the gear for Clint and then sell it to the military, win-win.

“I bet you could pull it off,” Clint quipped. The kid was laid up with broken ribs and a damn gunshot wound, and he was still mouthing off. Yeah, Tony definitely had to keep him alive.

“Get some rest, kid. Listen to your doctors, and your handler.” Tony wasn’t sure which agent was Clint’s handler, but he’d heard enough stories from the kid to know that his handler was actually looking out for him. “When you’re cleared, come by the workshop.”

“Christmas in July?” Clint asked. His voice was starting to sound a little strained, speech slightly slurred, so hopefully he had taken something for the pain that was starting to kick in.

“Something like that. Get better, or I’ll have you put in a permanent timeout.” Tony listened to Clint’s sleepy protests before hanging up with a quiet laugh, and he took a minute to just breathe as he pushed his phone into his pocket. He looked down at the way the phone bulged against the fabric, made a mental note to start working on a smaller phone, and then used his shoulders to push off from the cabinet.

His list of projects was always growing, more and more things to keep himself occupied, but his work for SI was at the top. That was why he was creeping around in the lower offices on a Saturday night instead of out doing anything else; he’d needed the physical blueprints of an old prototype, and they’d been shoved away in this depressing place. The whole room was closed in and slightly claustrophobic, and he shook his head before starting to walk. He had everything he needed now to start on the next project that Obie wanted, and he was sure that he could have everything ready before the next board meeting. Assuming that he focused solely on one project and didn’t start right away on Clint’s new gear. No, Clint would be benched while he healed so he had plenty of time to work on an explosion-proof suit.

Tony reached out to open the door, but the door swung out towards him before he could make contact. He narrowly avoided being hit by it, and he heard himself yelling as he hurriedly moved back. There was no time to see who had almost hit him, because whoever it was started screaming and then something was being sprayed. Instinct had him closing his eyes and raising his arm to block his face, and he stumbled back into the room as the person’s screaming slowly tapered off. He was about ninety percent sure that someone had just tried to give him a face full of pepper spray, and he listened to the sound of someone’s panicked breathing as he backed farther into the room. Once he was sure that he was a safe enough distance away, he lowered his arm and cracked his eyes open to see who had just tried to blind him.

“Oh, God, Mister Stark, I am so sorry!” There was a woman standing in the doorway, with a can of pepper spray still clenched in her shaking hand.

“Why the pepper spray?” Tony asked first. There were other questions that needed answering, but that was the first one to slip out.

“I thought you were going to hurt me,” the woman quickly explained. Now that he was paying attention, he could tell that she was shaking all over as her eyes darted around her. She was scared, but not of him. She wasn’t looking at him in fear, but something had her so scared that she was walking around SI with pepper spray at the ready.

“Well, I’m not. Want to tell me why you think someone at my company would hurt you?” He thought about taking a step forward but decided against it, and he kept his eyes on her as he took a few steps back until he could lean against a cabinet.

The woman hovered in the doorway for a moment, eyes scanning the hallway, and then she stepped through the doorway. She quickly closed the door behind her and hit a switch to flood the room with light, and he blinked against the sudden brightness as his eyes adjusted. Once he could see properly again, the woman had taken a few more steps into the room. She was still holding onto the pepper spray with one hand while the other clutched at the bag strap looped over her shoulder, and he watched as her wide eyes looked all around her. As if she was looking for someone hiding behind the cabinets. The baggy pantsuit she was wearing swayed along with her shaking, and her pale red hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail.

“My name is Virginia Potts-”

“Virginia? I’m not calling you that. No one should be called that.”

“-and I work in your finance department. I think-”

“I could just call you Potts, but that seems too informal for the person who just tried to pepper spray me.”

“-that someone is misappropriating company funds. When I tried to look into it-”

“There’s an idea! I’ll call you Pepper, because your real name is just awful. You should have a talk with your parents about that.”

“-my boss told me that I miscalculated and to concentrate on accounts better befitting my station. I couldn’t stop running the numbers over and I’m sure that-”

“Unless it’s a family name? No, that’s still not a good enough reason.”

“-Mister Stark!”

“Yes, dear?” he asked with a grin. The woman’s pale cheeks were suffused with color, but she wasn’t shaking anymore. The fear was gone from her expression, and now she just looked determined. Possibly a little annoyed. “Sorry, Miss Potts, you were saying?”

“I think someone is stealing money from the company. I wanted to find evidence to take to my boss’s boss, since my boss warned me off,” she answered and raised her chin a little. He had heard everything she said, despite talking over her the entire time, and he had been able to put together what she was saying. Someone was stealing, probably someone higher up than her boss in the finance department since he was trying to keep it quiet, and he had to admire the woman for sneaking into the company during the weekend to find the truth.

“Well, I’m everyone’s boss so let’s find the evidence and then clean house. Sound good?” he asked and stood up straight.

“You’re going to help me?” She looked confused, about him helping her to help his own company. Had all of the scandals tarnished his business reputation that much?

“It’s my company. If someone is stealing from it, that means they’re stealing from me. Now, where do you want me to start, Miss Potts?” He looked around the room after asking it, at the rows and rows of filing cabinets, and knew that he was in for a long night.

“Right this way, Mister Stark,” she said and led him towards a particular row of filing cabinets.

The two of them settled in, and it was a little tense at first. Tony was good at reading people though, good at getting the reactions he wanted, and it wasn’t long before Miss Potts started to relax. Two hours into their search, they were sitting on the floor with files spread out all around them. He had somehow convinced the very proper Miss Potts to let him call her Pepper, after she apologized again for nearly blinding him. After he got her talking, he realized that she was being wasted in her small cubicle in the finance offices. She was _smart_ , in every sense of the word. She ran the numbers as easy as breathing, eyes skimming over records nearly as fast as him, but she also filled him in on who she believed was in on everything. She told him how most of the people that she worked with overlooked her and how that made it easier for her to read them, and she remembered all of the little details that most people never paid attention to.

When they found the full list of discrepancies, Pepper let out a quiet cheer before she could stop herself. Between the two of them, they found enough evidence to bury half a dozen people. It pissed him off that people had been taking from him, taking from SI, but that was tempered by the knowledge that there was someone willing to look for the truth. So willing to look for the truth that they would arm themselves with pepper spray and sneak into the building on a Saturday night. Tony watched as Pepper moved across the office in her bare feet, she had kicked her heels off after the first hour, and listened as she went over everything they had found. He wanted to help her but was worried about getting in her way, because the woman moved like an organized storm. It was largely impressive and a little bit terrifying, and Tony thought he might be a little in love with her as she went over numbers and smiled at the thought of taking down her boss.

“You should work for me.” The words slipped out as she finished packing their evidence file, and her lovely blue eyes crinkled in the corners as she smiled at him.

“I already work for you, Mister Stark,” she said in a gentle tone.

“No, you should work only for me. Whattaya say, Pepper? Want to be the CEO’s personal assistant?” he asked. He hadn’t planned on asking that, but it felt right. She could do so much more outside of that cubicle, and he could admit that he could use a little help around the office. Happy could only do so much.

“Can I think about it?” she asked. She sounded a little nervous, but Tony was just more impressed. She was clearly too intelligent to even be an assistant, but he would work on making her ruler of the universe after he finished his other current projects.

“Take all the time you need, but I want you in my office first thing Monday morning.” When her expression shifted into confusion, he smiled and carefully took the file full of evidence from her hands. “So you can bust the idiots who tried to steal from me.”

“First thing. I’ll be there, Mister Stark,” she said and smiled while nodding.

“Excellent! Now, I’m going to call you a car to take you home,” he said and reached for his phone. She looked like she wanted to argue, until she glanced at her watch and realized just how late it was. When she nodded in acceptance, Tony called Happy. His bodyguard was not happy about being woken up but didn’t argue, and they hung up after only talking for a moment.

“You really didn’t have to do that,” Pepper said as he returned his phone to his pocket. Definitely needed to work on making a slimmer model. He shook that thought off for the time being and held his arm out, like a gentleman, and Pepper laughed quietly before looping her arm through his.

“I needed him to take me home anyway. One extra stop isn’t a problem,” Tony lied. His own car was parked in the underground garage, but he might as well have Happy drive him home. He hadn’t slept much in the past couple of nights, and the all-nighters were catching up to him. His only options were to drive himself or have Happy drive him, and now Happy was already awake.

“Mister Stark?”

“So polite. You can call me Tony.”

“I’ll make a note of that.”

“I’m assuming you had a question.”

“What would a job as your assistant entail?”

As they walked through SI, Tony listed off all of the things that he dealt with. The meetings, the dealings with the board members, the events he had to attend, and the never ending schedule that he had to keep. An assistant would help him keep track of everything, so that Obie would stop lecturing him on missing the important things. Sometimes he got a little lost inside the workshop and forgot a meeting, which always put a concerned and worried look on Obie’s face. The man had been there for him ever since he was a kid, had been Howard’s business partner and friend, and Tony didn’t like worrying him. Plus, it’d be nice to have someone around that he could have an intelligent conversation with. Rhodey was always busy these days, and Happy was a smart man but tended to tune Tony out whenever he really got going.

They only had to wait outside for a few minutes before Happy was pulling up, which had to mean that he’d broken a few speeding laws to get there. Tony took care of the introductions, but Happy didn’t even bat an eye at the tall redhead who followed Tony into the backseat. Probably because it wasn’t the first time that he’d had company in the backseat, so he made a point to tell Happy all about the money stealing scandal that Pepper had uncovered. Happy seemed to warm up to her a little, he even thanked her, but he mostly just sounded tired. He easily followed directions to Pepper’s small apartment, Tony was definitely going to have to increase her salary because the place looked miserable, and Pepper thanked him again before sliding out of the car. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had thanked him so sincerely.

“Goodnight, Mister Stark,” she said with a small smile.

“Goodnight, Miss Potts,” he returned. Her smile brightened a little before she turned around, and she waved over her shoulder before disappearing into the apartment building. Tony reached over to close the car door and then slumped back against the seat, and he met Happy’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“She seems like a good woman,” Happy stated.

“She is,” Tony agreed. Happy looked away then and pulled away from the apartment building, and Tony closed his eyes. He’d get in a quick nap and then get to work as soon as he was back in the workshop, because he had some lost time to make up for.

✪  
✪  
✪

“Miss Potts has arrived, sir.” Tony looked away from his pan of scrambled eggs and over at where Clint was sitting on the kitchen island, and the kid raised his brows when their eyes met.

“Tell her we’re in the kitchen,” Tony said while Clint looked up at the ceiling.

“Your electronic butler is so weird,” Clint said as he squinted up at the ceiling.

“JARVIS is an AI, and he proves that I am a genius.” Clint rolled his eyes but didn’t argue, and Tony turned back to his eggs. “Be nice to my assistant, kid, or I won’t feed you.”

“You’d let me starve?” Clint asked right as Pepper walked into the kitchen. She had been in the house before and had even been introduced to JARVIS, but she hadn’t met Clint yet. He could see her studying the kid sitting on top of the island as she walked farther into the kitchen, but she didn’t seem all that phased by it.

“Good, you’re awake. Who’s this?” Pepper asked and smiled at Clint. Tony finished with the eggs, and he pulled down a third plate to join the two already on the counter. As he started the introductions, he divided the eggs between all three plates.

“Pepper is my assistant and will one day rule the universe. Clint is the kid that keeps breaking into my house and stealing my food.” Tony pulled the pan of bacon out of the oven, where he had been keeping it warm, and distributed it between the three plates.

“Tony built my hearing aids, and he’s scared to admit that he likes my company. One other thing, I’m eighteen so you gotta stop calling me a kid.” Clint said the last part with a little bit of a whine, and Tony wasn’t sure how to explain that he’d always see Clint as the skinny sixteen year old with too much energy fidgeting in his lab.

“Back me up here, Pepper. Eighteen is still a kid, right?” Tony asked it as he handed the first plate to Pepper, who smiled at him in thanks before grabbing her fork and tapping it against the side of the plate.

“I’m sorry, but eighteen means that you’re still a kid,” Pepper said in a soft tone. There was a hint of a smile around the corners of her lips though, and Clint started to full-on pout. It didn’t last long though, because his expression lit up when Tony handed over the plate loaded down with the most food. The kid was still growing and needed to eat.

“You’re both just jealous that I’ll still be beautiful when you’re old hags,” Clint said around a mouthful of bacon. Pepper laughed so suddenly that she started to choke on her eggs, and Tony rushed over with a bottle of water. Pepper placed her plate on the counter next to where she was standing and took the water bottle, and Tony slowly backed away as she stopped coughing and washed the eggs down.

“Quit being a little shit,” Tony said and pointed up at Clint’s face.

“Sorry, Pepper.” The apology was muffled because of all the food jammed into the kid’s mouth, and Tony shook his head while Pepper assured him that she was okay. He tossed a bottle of water at Clint, who easily caught it with the hand not holding his plate, and then moved to fix himself another cup of coffee.

“This is really good, Tony, thank you,” Pepper said in between bites. Tony just smiled and didn’t reply, because he didn’t really know what to say. All he did was cook a very simple breakfast. Wasn’t really anything worth a thank you, but he didn’t want to say that to the one person who was consistently polite around him. So he didn’t say anything and instead started to eat his own eggs and bacon.

“So, what are you up to today? You’re dressed all fancy,” Clint said after he slowed down his eating. Tony kept chewing because he knew it would annoy Clint, who huffed on cue and then rolled his eyes. Served the kid right for dropping out of the kitchen air vent right as Tony was getting out the eggs. He’d nearly dropped a whole carton when the kid landed on the floor with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“We have a meeting with several military officials,” Pepper answered for him. Clint hummed and then cocked his head to the side as he looked right at Tony, and he shoveled in more eggs as the kid studied him.

“Giving over more explosives or making plans for more?” Clint finally asked. The kid was constantly asking him why he didn’t focus on the defensive side of combat, like the protective gear and extensive first aid that he’d put together for Clint, and he never seemed satisfied with the answer that Tony gave.

_“I’m just the mechanic, kid. They tell me what they need, and that’s what I build. Simple as that.”_

“Bit of both,” Tony shrugged. He wasn’t entirely sure actually, but it didn’t really matter. He’d find out at the meeting and move forward from there.

“We really should go before we’re late,” Pepper said as she scooped up another bite of eggs. She immediately popped a piece of bacon into her mouth right behind the eggs, and Tony realized that both of them were hurrying to finish their breakfast.

“Just waiting for-”

“Mister Hogan has arrived, sir, and is waiting for you in the car,” JARVIS announced.

“-that. Ready?” Tony asked Pepper. She scraped the last of the food off her plate and then walked it over to the sink, and Tony followed her example.

“It was really nice to meet you, Clint,” Pepper said with a quick wave before leaving the kitchen. Clint leaned forward to watch her leave and then grinned over at where Tony was quickly rinsing the plates.

“I like her,” Clint decided. Tony didn’t bother with a reply to that and instead topped off his coffee, because he had a feeling that he was going to need it. Once that was done, he moved over to the oven and pulled out a second tray. Two egg and bacon burritos were wrapped in foil, warmed from the oven, and he balanced them in one hand so that he could carry his coffee in the other.

“Clint, stop by the workshop before you leave. There’s a box of arrows on one of the tables, and Dum-E made you a…something? I think it’s a bird, but he made it using scrap metal so it’s a little difficult to be sure. Just be nice to him and say thank you, because I am not dealing with him moping around the workshop.” He had Happy’s burritos and his coffee, his ungainly phone was in his pocket because he kept forgetting to make a better one, and he didn’t think that he was forgetting anything. Pepper took care of any paperwork, so he should be cleared to leave.

“Like I have ever not been nice to Dum-E? I’m nicer to him than you are,” Clint grumbled.

“JARVIS, lock up after Clint leaves,” Tony said as he did a quick scan of the kitchen.

“Of course, sir. Have a good day,” the AI said in a polite tone. He needed to program a little more personality into the AI. He’d get on that later.

“Knock ‘em dead,” Clint drawled.

“Stay out of trouble, kid!” Tony called out as he left the kitchen. He knew Clint would be safe in the house, just like he knew that the few dishes in the sink would be washed when he got home. Because for the first time in years, Tony had a routine that he could depend on. _“Huh. How about that?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant for this chapter to end at the beginning of _Iron Man 1_ , but I got carried away again. I blame Clint. The next chapter really should be the last buildup chapter before getting to the movies, because there's only a few more years left to cover. 
> 
> Also, I want to say that I absolutely love Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye. He played the part perfectly, but I decided to go with a younger Clint Barton for this story. Which is why he's only sixteen when he starts working for SHIELD and meets Tony, and that's why I changed his face claim. Because I really wanted to write a Tony Stark and Clint Barton friendship. (I think I might have written the origins of Dad!Tony on accident though. Whoops.)
> 
> Please let me know if anything is confusing or needs to be cleared up, and thanks for reading!


	4. I Am Going Through The Motions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony continues to live his life with some help from his makeshift family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to have this chapter out sooner, and it would have already been posted if I hadn't rewritten it. The first version just didn't feel right to me, so I scrapped it and started over. (Kidding. I still have the first draft, and I might post some of those scenes as extras or something later on.) Also, this is the last catch-up chapter. I'll start on _Iron Man 1_ in the next chapter, and I'm pretty sure that Bucky will be in the next chapter too. Unless I get carried away. I'll try to rein myself in.

****

**03 JUNE 2001**

“Cousin Tony.”

Tony blinked in an effort to clear his blurry vision and waited a beat for his memory to catch up with him. The surface under him was soft, high thread count, so he was in bed and not passed out elsewhere in the house. (He had a bad habit of falling asleep in the workshop. Occasionally on the couch he kept in a corner but more usually slumped over a table.) He slowly stretched as he realized the acrid taste on his tongue was recycled vodka, and since when did he drink vodka? Oh, right, the girls had been mixing drinks. He couldn’t feel any other bodies in the bed though, so that was one thing in his favor. That had to mean that Pepper had already been by, and he made a mental note to get her something nice to make up for all of the shit that she had to put up with. Like, for example, his hungover one night stands.

“Cousin Sharon,” he managed to get out. His mouth was dry, tongue heavy and lips cracked painfully, and he shifted again. He couldn’t feel the sheets against his bare ass, which meant that he was at least somewhat covered. Maybe this morning wouldn’t be so bad.

“You look like shit.” The voice was closer now, and Tony stopped blinking up at the ceiling and looked over. Dark brown eyes immediately met his, and a perfectly manicured eyebrow raised as Tony took her in. How could an eighteen year old be more put together than him?

“You look radiant.” The impassive look on her face cracked as she smiled, and blonde hair fanned across her shoulders as she shook her head at him. It was something that she had picked up from Peggy, because he had seen that exact same headshake countless times over the years.

“Get yourself in the shower and cleaned up. I’ll be in the kitchen,” Sharon said and turned on her heel. He rolled his head across the mattress to watch her leave the room and then closed his eyes for a moment.

After he felt a little more awake, he forced his eyes open again and then started to drag himself out of bed. He looked around after standing up, but nothing looked too bad. The bed was a mess and there were some clothes strewn across the room. Nothing too incriminating or inappropriate. He was also wearing boxers, which was a rarity on mornings like these, so it really could have been worse. He grabbed some clothes from the closet before making his way into the bathroom, and the heat of the shower was exactly what he needed. He fully remembered the previous night, the event that SI had hosted that had been incredibly boring until he met a trio of lovely young women, and the party had spilled over into the early hours of the morning here. JARVIS had tried to remind him of his _morning appointment_ when he had first walked in, but Tony had been paying more attention to the beautiful brunette who had been…not important.

“You there, buddy?” he asked as he stepped out of the shower.

“Always, sir.” Ouch. There was a definite tone there, and Tony stopped toweling off his hair and let himself drip onto the bathroom tiles.

“Sorry for ignoring you last night, J.” JARVIS was his creation, was labeled as artificial intelligence, but he was so much more than that. He had the ability to learn, to grow and become _more_ , and Tony did feel guilty about ignoring his warning the night before.

“You are forgiven, sir. Might I recommend an increase in pace? Miss Sharon says that she will not wait for you to begin eating,” JARVIS informed him. Telling him that was the best way to let Tony know that he was forgiven, and he smiled to himself as he hurriedly finished drying off and then pulled his clothes on. Just jeans and a tee shirt, because he was staying in today. With his house guest.

 _Sharon_. He hadn’t forgotten that the kid was arriving today, he’d been looking forward to her arrival actually, but it had slipped his mind. Just a little. Preparations had already been made, he’d started working on turning one of the guest rooms into her room weeks ago, and he really should have skipped the after party the night before. He had promised Peggy and Isabelle that he’d look after Sharon while being on his best behavior, but he supposed it could have been worse and decided to count the morning as a win. So he finished brushing his teeth, grinned at his reflection, and walked back out into his bedroom.

“Pepper! What brings you here this early?” he asked as Pepper stepped out of his closet.

“I brought your suit for tomorrow’s meeting, and I just met the lovely young woman in your kitchen. Cousin Sharon?” Pepper was dressed down today too, it was a Sunday so they were both allowed, but she looked just as intimidating in denim shorts and sandals as she did in her impeccable suits and heels. Especially when she was looking at him with that curious glint in her eyes. Like she could see right through him to the truth.

“You remember Aunt Peggy?” he asked. Pepper was his personal assistant, for both the company and in life. SHIELD still made requests with SI, and he had explained SHIELD to Pepper one night after spending a few nights locked in the workshop. (Alcohol didn’t make him talkative. Sleep deprivation did.) He’d told her that his dad had helped to build the government organization, that was a little more known now but was still secretive, and she had listened in that ever patient way of hers. Then, a few weeks later, he had taken Pepper on a lunch date with Peggy. The two women got along a little too well for his comfort.

“Of course,” Pepper answered with a fond smile. She knew that Peggy had been one of Howard’s closest friends, which was why Tony had grown up calling the woman his aunt.

“Sharon is Peggy’s grandniece,” he explained.

“So, Cousin Sharon,” Pepper pieced together.

“Her mother, Isabelle, is traveling with Peggy in Europe for the summer. Sharon didn’t want to go, so I offered to keep an eye on her,” he said and shrugged. His toes curled against the carpet as he looked down, and he realized there were oil stains at the bottom of his jeans.

“You’re babysitting?” Tony quickly looked back up at the strained sound of Pepper’s voice, and he realized that she was trying not to laugh. Her lips were pressed into a thin line as color flooded her cheeks, and it was such a good look on her that he couldn’t even feign being upset at her laughing at him. Because she was definitely laughing at him. He could see it in her eyes and in the slight shakes of her shoulders.

“I am not babysitting. She’s eighteen and starting at Stanford in the fall. She’s an adult,” he amended. Sharon was a high school graduate and would be starting college at the end of summer, but she had been middle-aged when she was twelve. The kid was more of an adult than he was.

“Try to stay out of trouble, for her sake,” Pepper finally told him. She lightly patted his cheek as she walked past him, and Tony shook the pat off before following after her.

“Me? Getting into trouble? That’s crazy talk!” Tony called after her. This time, Pepper let herself laugh. The sound filled the hallway, and Tony smiled even though Pepper couldn’t see him. He loved it when his assistant laughed freely like that.

“Meeting tomorrow,” Pepper reminded him. Tony needed to turn to go into the kitchen, and Pepper had turned around so that she was slowly walking backwards in the direction of the front door.

“Won’t let you down, Pep,” he promised. Her smile was small and beautiful, and Tony watched her wave before she turned around and walked away. Pepper was more than just his assistant, she was a friend and a confidant, and sometimes Tony thought that it’d be easy to fall in love with her. (Pepper deserved so much more than him.)

Tony turned to walk to the kitchen after Pepper was out of sight, and he could hear Sharon singing under her breath. She was standing at the stove when he made it into the kitchen, and she glanced over her shoulder just long enough to shoot him a smile before flipping a pancake. There was already a small stack of pancakes on the counter next to her, and the clenching of his stomach reminded him that he couldn’t survive on coffee and liquor alone. He could smell coffee brewing though, and that would have to hold him over until Sharon was done. So he moved across the kitchen as Sharon started humming and went through the motions of fixing himself a cup. Pure, bitter, and _perfect_.

“Fun night?” Sharon asked. He was leaning against the counter now, plate of pancakes between them, and he raised his cup to give himself a moment to reply. Because last night? Was just another night. Another way to get out of the party that he didn’t want to attend in the first place and a guarantee that he wouldn’t return to his workshop as soon as he got home.

“And morning,” was how he decided to answer. Sharon just shook her head again, looking so much like Peggy for a moment, but he could see the edge of her smile. “Now, tell me again. Why are you staying with me when you could be backpacking across Europe?”

“Because I don’t want to spend the next couple of months listening to my mom try to convince me not to join SHIELD.” Tony promptly choked on his coffee, hot liquid burned a path down his chin when he didn’t manage to swallow it all, and Sharon just reached over to lightly pat his shoulder like she hadn’t just dropped a bomb on him.

“What?!” he croaked out. He heard her sigh as she turned the stove off and moved the pan she’d been cooking in, and Tony watched with confused eyes as she moved around the kitchen. The plate with stacked pancakes was moved over to the kitchen table, she pulled down two more plates and walked them over to the kitchen table too, and he caught the pinched expression she was trying to hide when she moved to get some forks.

After swiping a hand across his chin, Tony turned around and topped off his coffee. He had a feeling that he was going to need the caffeine for the upcoming conversation, and Sharon was already sitting down at the table by the time he was done. He took his seat across from her, snagged a few pancakes for himself, and drowned them in syrup. Sharon was all tense lines across from him, with stiff movements as she ate, and he swallowed down his initial words. It wasn’t like he could lecture anyone about their life choices, and he didn’t want to be someone else trying to tell her what she should do with her life. He had always hated it when Howard _told_ him what he was going to do. So he pushed his own feelings aside and focused on Sharon instead. After a moment, her dark eyes met his.

“Just go ahead and say it,” she sighed and looked down at her plate. Tony finished chewing his mouthful of pancakes, which was really more syrup than anything, and washed it down with a long drink from his cup.

“Not going to Stanford then?” he asked first. Sharon’s head snapped up, dark eyes wide now, and her brows were drawn tight in confusion.

“Of course I’m still going.” She sounded confused too, each word was said slowly, and he nodded absently before cutting off another bite of pancake.

“So what’s the plan then?” He’d known Sharon her entire life. The kid had a plan for entering kindergarten, _make a best friend to share gummies with_ , so he knew she had a plan for this.

“Psychology degree from Stanford,” she started. She stopped when he made a face, because _psychology_? Sounded like the opposite of fun. She narrowed her eyes at him, which just made him grin, and then continued on. “After that, I’ll start at the SHIELD Academy.”

“Operations, I assume?” He already knew the answer to that, but he had to ask.

“Yes. I want to be a field agent,” she confirmed. Quiet fell over them again, except for the sounds of their forks scraping their plates. He didn’t really know what to say. He had never wanted to join SHIELD, as an agent or as an engineer, but he could try to understand why Sharon wanted to join. Their histories with the agency were different; he was (somewhat) raised by one of the founders, while Sharon was raised by a loving mother and only visited the other founder.

“Can I ask why?” It was the only way he’d be able to start to understand, and he didn’t understand why Sharon looked shocked as their eyes met again. Unless he was the first person to ask her why she wanted to join.

“Promise not to laugh?”

“You know I can’t promise that.”

“I want to make a difference,” Sharon said two pancakes later. Tony tapped his fork against his cleaned off plate, because he wanted to hear her out. Actually hear her out and not just humor her, which was what her mother had probably done. Isabelle wanted the best for her only child, and he could only imagine at how furious she had been when Sharon first told her mother her plans.

“Don’t need SHIELD to do that,” he told her. He was making a difference in the world, and he didn’t need SHIELD.

“We can’t all be geniuses with billion dollar companies,” she countered. It was like she was reading his mind, and he narrowed his eyes as he continued to look at her. She mirrored the look, and he waited her out. “I know that there are a hundred other ways, but this is the way that feels right to me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it?” She looked skeptical as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, and he thought about Isabelle lecturing her and even Peggy pushing her to carefully think everything through. She had adults telling her how to think already, and he didn’t want to be added to that list.

“That’s it. If you still want to join after you finish school, that’s your decision. Just, give me a heads-up. The standard issue body armor is complete shit,” he said seriously. It really was, which was why he kept updating Clint’s gear.

“I don’t want special treatment, Tony.” Sharon was smiling as she said it, but her tone was an admonishment. Slightly. Just enough to make him sigh and slump down in his seat.

“Guess I’ll have to convince SHIELD to buy the upgrades then, before you join,” he replied with a smile of his own. Sharon rolled her eyes before standing up, and she gathered up their dishes and walked them over to the sink. He’d let her wash the dishes while he drank down some more caffeine, and then the two of them could decide what to do. Sharon was only with him for the summer, and he wasn’t going to waste the next couple of months talking about SHIELD.

✪  
✪  
✪

Tony heard Sharon scream right as he emerged from the workshop, and he was running through the house a second later and cursing himself. JARVIS was down while he worked through some kinks, and it seemed like he had picked the worst time to pull JARVIS offline. The scream had come from the center of the house, the den, and that was where he was headed. He was wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt, didn’t even have any shoes on, so he had no kind of weapon as he ran straight into the den and forced himself to stop moving. He caught a flash of blonde as Sharon jumped over the couch, and he blinked in confusion as he processed the scene. Sharon’s form was perfect as she threw punches and kicks, perfect enough to rival the _agent_ opposite her, and he saw the quick-fire grin on Clint’s face as he barely blocked a kick aimed at his midsection.

“Tony! Call her off!” Clint called out. The second of distraction was just enough for Sharon to land a punch, and Clint’s head kicked back as his lip split open. It was the sight of blood that got Tony moving again, and he stopped behind Sharon and grabbed her arms before she could hit Clint again.

“Sharon! Don’t!” Tony yelled. Clint wiped his bottom lip with the back of his hand and squinted down at the blood streaked across his skin, but the idiot was still smiling. Tony was still holding onto Sharon’s upper arms and had her pulled back so that he could feel how tense she was, and she tipped her head back to get him in her sight.

“Friend of yours?” she asked without looking away from Clint. The idiot in front of them nodded, and Tony resisted the urge to go smack him.

“This,” Tony started and shook Sharon a little before continuing, “is Cousin Sharon. _That_ is Clint Barton, my pet SHIELD agent.”

“I am a secret agent! Emphasis on secret!” Clint yelled with wide eyes.

“That guy is an agent?” Sharon asked with a tone full of disbelief. Clint made a sound somewhere in the squawk range and propped his hands on his hips, and Tony cursed himself again for ever letting the kid grow on him.

“Hey, Clint, show Sharon where you got shot.”

“Why?” they both asked him. Tony watched them glare at each other, as if they were both offended that they had spoken at the same time, and he moved his hold from Sharon’s arms to her shoulders.

“Because after college, Sharon is planning on joining SHIELD and I want her to know everything that entails. Barton, shirt off, now,” Tony said and snapped with one hand.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t try to talk me out of joining,” Sharon said and looked up at him. Her eyes were accusatory, and he gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. They’d made it three weeks without even bringing up the agency, until now.

“I’m not! Just want you to have all the facts,” Tony placated. Across from them, Clint rolled his eyes and then looked up at the ceiling while speaking silently.

“Why don’t we start with why there is a SHIELD agent breaking into your home.” It was phrased as a question but was definitely a demand, and Tony groaned before dropping his head and finally releasing Sharon completely.

“First, coffee,” he decided and turned around. He’d been leaving the workshop for coffee, and he definitely needed it before explaining Clint.

As he walked, he heard footsteps fall in behind him. When he glanced over his shoulder, Sharon and Clint were walking side-by-side while watching each other. Clint was still grinning, like he was having the time of his life, and Sharon looked understandably suspicious. Tony started on his coffee as soon as he reached the kitchen, and he started explaining while waiting. About how Clint had been sent to him for hearing aids, and Tony had to reluctantly admit to wanting to keep the idiot alive. Sharon’s eyes had widened when Tony told her about designing equipment just for Clint, and she had then turned on Clint and asked him how he was okay with taking advantage of her cousin’s generosity and accepting special treatment not afforded to his fellow agents. By that point, Tony was fixing himself the largest coffee that he possibly could and left Clint to fend for himself. The kid had just shrugged and told her that he never asked for anything that Tony gave him (which was true) and that he accepted it all because he liked being alive (which was reasonable).

In hindsight, leaving the two of them alone after that probably wasn’t the best idea. Tony was anxious to get JARVIS up and running again though, and he’d been sure that they wouldn’t start fighting again. He’d been right about that. They didn’t start fighting again, but they did somehow manage to become friends during the next six hours that Tony spent in his workshop. Because the next time he had found them, they were sprawled across Sharon’s bed and giggling like children. Sharon had been in the process of painting Clint’s toenails while the kid told her the highlights of working for SHIELD, and Tony had a sudden image of the two of them working together and wreaking havoc across the known world. He’d stood in the doorway and watched them until Clint had thrown a sock at his face, and he had realized then that introducing the two of them was a massive mistake.

“He looks out of it. How long has he been working?” Clint asked Sharon. Tony was still standing in the doorway of the guest room, _of Sharon’s room_ , and holding Clint’s dirty sock in one hand.

“Couple of days,” Sharon answered.

“I’m on a deadline,” Tony defended. They looked at him with identical looks that he couldn’t decipher, and his head tilted to the side as he looked down at the sock he was holding. There was a hole in the heel. Did Clint not make enough to buy more socks?

“You work too much,” Sharon finally said.

“Yeah, old man. Slow down and enjoy life,” Clint added.

“I do enjoy life. It’s been documented,” Tony heard himself say. His finger wiggled through the hole, and he made a note to talk to Fury about increasing Clint’s pay. The kid needed new socks.

“Go get some sleep.” He looked up and straight ahead at Sharon, who smiled at him when their eyes caught.

“It’s movie night,” he reminded her.

“Clint will keep me company. Right, birdboy?” she asked and looked over at Clint. He nodded and then looked over at Tony with his grin still in place, and Tony felt like he was swaying on his feet as he looked between them.

“We’re good, Tony. Go lay down before you pass out,” Clint said and waved his hand. Tony threw the sock at Clint, who caught it without even having to follow its movement through the air, and Tony turned on his heel. The hallway kept spinning, which wasn’t a good sign, and he weaved his way towards his own room. Sleep sounded like a good idea. The kids could look after each other for a few hours.

**19 JANUARY 2002**

“You’re doing too much, Tones.”

“Some would say that I’m not doing enough.”

Tony listened to Rhodey sigh and cataloged it as one of his _this-isn’t-over-yet_ sighs. That was too bad. He’d been hoping for a sigh of surrender. Rhodey had been fussing like a mother hen since he’d gotten in two days ago, which had been endearing at first but was now starting to become ridiculous. Tony was an adult, who didn’t need someone looking out for him. (Besides, he already had Happy and Pepper looking after him.) Rhodey only had a few more days of leave left, and Tony didn’t want to spend them listening to Rhodey worry. Because there was no reason to worry. Tony was absolutely fine, really. He had even slept in his own bed twice in the past month, which was a definite improvement over the past several months. Besides, Rhodey really had no room to talk. Rhodey was now the new military liaison of Stark Industries, which was only going to increase his workload. Maybe Tony should try lecturing him on taking it easy for a change.

“Stane is working you too hard.” This time when Tony started to protest, Rhodey held up a hand and cut him off. “I appreciate what you’re doing, and so does everyone else. What you’re doing is important, but you’re important too.”

“I knew you cared,” Tony said and looked over to flutter his eyelashes at Rhodey’s impassive face.

“I will smack you,” Rhodey warned. Tony blew him a kiss and then relaxed back into his chair, and he looked up at the dark sky with a faint smile. They’d been sitting outside the house in overly comfortable lawn chairs with a cooler between them, and it’d been relaxing. Until Rhodey started to fuss again.

“It’s not all work and no play, you know,” he said and looked at Rhodey from the corner of his eye. Once Rhodey was looking at him again, he continued. “I spent a glorious week with a prince last month.”

“Told the boys that story wasn’t bullshit,” Rhodey said and cracked a smile. Tony cheered at the victory and saw Rhodey’s smile widening. The night was now a success.

✪  
✪  
✪

“I’m telling you, Tony. She can kill a man with just her thighs,” Clint called out. Tony looked away from the StarkPhone prototype that he was working on to see the way that Clint was sprawled out across the workshop couch, and he sounded at ease but the kid was looking rough. His face was visibly bruised, and Tony knew that the arm thrown across his midsection was really holding his ribs together.

“Should I be impressed or terrified?” Tony asked as he slowly started to walk over.

“Both,” Clint decided. When Tony was close enough, Clint raised his legs and gave Tony a place to collapse. His knees unlocked so that he could fall onto the couch, and Clint’s legs dropped down into his lap.

“Dum-E! Bring over that last pizza box?” Tony asked. He should have grabbed it himself, but he’d been awake for going on seventy-two hours and was feeling a little sluggish. He should probably try to sleep, but he hadn’t seen Clint in nearly seven months. Because the kid had been busy looking after his adopted pet Russian. They grow up so fast.

“There’s more pizza?” Clint asked hopefully. There were already two empty boxes on the floor next to Clint’s head, and Tony would never stop feeling surprise over how much the kid could eat in one sitting. It was absurd, and possibly superhuman.

“So, let me see if I got this right,” Tony started. He paused after Dum-E arrived with the pizza box, and he thanked the bot and gave him a quick pat before taking the box from his claw. Then he popped the box open and grabbed a slice before continuing, “You were sent to take out an enemy assassin. Then, instead of eliminating your target, you kidnapped the assassin and tried to domesticate the target?”

“Sounds ridiculous when you say it,” Clint said and then reached out with his freakishly long arms. Tony reluctantly allowed him to snag a couple of slices before pulling the box away from his reach, and he quickly finished his first slice and grabbed another.

“I repeated your exact words, so you only have yourself to blame,” Tony pointed out. He accepted the half empty bottle of water that the kid held out and washed down the cheese stuck to the roof of his mouth, and Clint grinned at him with half a slice of pizza sticking out of his mouth. The kid was twenty but still acted like a teenager most of the time, and Tony felt his face screw up in disgust before he turned back to his own food.

“She’s young, younger than me,” Clint admitted quietly. Tony wanted to look over at him, but he loosely held onto the kid’s ankle instead and focused on eating his third slice. Just like he hoped, Clint kept talking. “I think she was younger than me when she started, but I don’t think she had a choice like I did. I was ready to follow through, but then I really saw her. She looked, _fuck_.”

 _“Keep your mouth shut, Stark. If you talk now, he’ll clam up,”_ Tony thought desperately. Tony was technically a civilian, but that didn’t stop Clint from telling him about his missions. They both knew that Tony would never compromise Clint or SHIELD, no matter his opinion on the agency, but Clint wouldn’t talk if Tony prodded. He had to talk at his own pace, which meant that Tony had to exercise restraint.

“She looked grateful, Tony. Grateful and pissed off,” Clint roughed out. Tony squeezed his eyes shut as he leaned his head back against the cushion, and he was thankful to SHIELD for the first time. Thankful that they had found Clint instead of someone else, because that could have easily been Clint. The kid was skilled and useful, and someone else could have easily taken advantage. “When I didn’t shoot her, she punched me in the face and called me an idiot.”

“I like her already,” Tony let slip out. He heard Clint laugh and squeezed his ankle when it sounded a little wet, and he forced himself to relax into the couch.

“My handler wasn’t happy and I thought Fury was going to shoot me after he got done lecturing, but I made the right call. She’s not a bad person. She can be good. She wants to be good,” Clint rambled out. He sounded tired, and Tony cracked an eye open just in time to see the kid mid-yawn.

“Barton. I think you finally made a friend,” Tony said with fake surprise. Clint weakly kicked at his stomach and then yawned again, and Tony settled into his seat a little more. It was time for a nap, for both of them apparently.

**27 AUGUST 2003**

“You know, Isabelle is thinking about suing you for custody,” Peggy told him over dessert. Their dinner had been delicious and thankfully undisturbed, and Tony was glad that they were seated on a balcony so that he could look up at the sky while he thought. He’d been waiting the entire dinner for this conversation to start, and he smiled before looking across the table at Peggy.

“I think Sharon is a little too old for that now,” he settled on. Peggy’s lips twitched into a smile as she slowly shook her head at him, and he tapped his fingers against his empty dessert plate. He should have eaten that cake slice slower.

“This makes three summers in a row that she has spent with you,” Peggy pointed out.

“She spent her first month of summer break at home.” This year and last year, Sharon had spent the six weeks before fall classes started at his home. He still had his usual obligations, but he had taken off as much as possible to spend time with his cousin. He loved spending time with Sharon, and he liked that whatever tension she arrived with dissipated the longer she stayed with him.

“Isabelle was so sure that you would talk her out of joining, when I wouldn’t. I thought you would too. You’ve always been quite vocal about your opinions concerning the agency,” Peggy said and raised an eyebrow in question. Even with silver hair, she was intimidating when she looked at him so steadily.

“I’m vocal about _my_ opinions. Sharon is intelligent enough to make her own decisions, and I am not going to be another person telling her what to do. I’ll always be on her side.” It was something that Tony had said before, although he’d been talking to Sharon then. He had promised to always take her side and support her, no matter what she wanted to do.

“How very mature of you, Anthony.” Peggy had a slight twinkle in her eyes as she smiled at him, and Tony felt himself relaxing. He thought she might try to talk him into trying to convince Sharon to spend more of her breaks with her mother, but it seemed like Peggy approved of his actions.

“Besides, it’s not like I bought her a thigh holster,” he shrugged. He blinked as a napkin bounced off his forehead, and Peggy primly took another bite of her cake as he looked at her with wide eyes. Then his head tipped back as he laughed and he stopped worrying over hypothetical situations. It wasn’t like Peggy had ever been predictable anyway.

**29 MAY 2005**

“Happy birthday!”

The echoing yells caused Tony to pause just inside of the kitchen, and he blinked a few times in confusion as he looked around at all of the smiling faces. He’d come up from the workshop because JARVIS told him that Pepper was in the kitchen, and Pepper was definitely standing in front of him but not alone. Peggy and Isabelle were standing next to the island, Pepper was standing between Happy and Rhodey, and Sharon and Clint were holding up a cake with a lot of burning candles.

“It’s my birthday?” he heard himself ask. His birthday wasn’t until next week, unless he had lost some days. Going by the bemused expressions aimed at him, he had lost some days. Huh. His bare feet smacked across the floor as he walked farther into the kitchen, and he stopped right in front of the flaming cake.

“Come on and make a wish,” Clint told him.

“Did you seriously put thirty-five candles on the cake? Don’t they have candles in the shape of numbers? This is a fire hazard,” Tony mumbled. He heard laughter, and he looked left and right at all the faces. This was the first time that he’d seen all of them in the same room, his little makeshift family.

“Make a wish, Cousin Tony,” Sharon whispered. He looked at everyone again and thought about how strange it was to see them all together, and he realized that he wanted more moments like this. Moments where he was blindsided by the people that he cared for. Tony closed his eyes and blew out the candles.

“What’d you wish for, Tones?” Rhodey asked as an arm curled around his shoulders. There was movement as the cake was moved over to the island, and he could see Isabelle moving to cut pieces for everyone. If he was lucky, she was the one who had made the cake.

“World peace,” he said and grinned over at his oldest friend. Rhodey rolled his eyes, fondly, and pushed Tony away. Happy caught him and stopped him from running into the kitchen table, which Tony realized was loaded down with food from his favorite Italian restaurant.

“You okay, boss?” Happy was looking at him with a mixture of concern and amusement, and Tony smiled as he slapped a hand against his shoulder and turned to look at the rest of the kitchen.

“Anthony! Come eat!” Isabelle called out. Peggy, who was standing at Isabelle’s side, waved him over before looking down at the cake in clear hunger.

“Never been better,” Tony said honestly.

**08 NOVEMBER 2007**

Tony stepped out of his car, switched his bag of Chinese takeout to his left hand, and used his right hand to push his sunglasses up into his hair as he started walking towards the house. The agent that had been waiting on him fell into step next to him, and Tony looked over at the woman. She was tall, only a few inches shorter than him, and she carried herself like a soldier. Her brown hair was pulled back into a bun, held tight instead of loose like Pepper was fond of doing, and his eyes traced over the curve of her cheekbone as she stared straight ahead. He had been dodging SHIELD agents for the past three months, and she was the first one to show up at his home. The others had tried to corner him at SI and a few brave souls had attempted an approach while he was out socializing, and he had managed to slip away from all of them. Until now.

“You’re prettier than the last agent they sent,” he said as he stopped at the front door. He didn’t have a key for his Malibu home, because he had JARVIS. He still stopped at the door though and turned so that he was facing towards the agent that had finally turned to look at him. Blue eyes. He liked blue eyes.

“I should hope so,” she said in the driest tone he had ever heard. Rhodey would love her. Then he remembered the last agent, the one who had thought he was stealthy as he tailed him through a cocktail party, and shivered. The man had looked like he had one foot in the grave, and Tony distinctly remembered seeing tufts of hair poking out of his ears.

“Any chance of talking you out of this particular mission?” he tried. The woman just raised a brow, but there was a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Didn’t think so. Right this way, Agent Hill. Or do you still prefer Lieutenant Hill?”

“You could just use my first name,” the agent said as she followed him inside.

“Welcome home, sir,” JARVIS greeted. Hill didn’t even flinch at the sudden sound of the AI, which earned her a point in his book.

“My mother’s name was Maria,” he commented. The agent never broke stride at the casual mention of his _assassinated_ mother, but he did see the way that her jaw tightened. The other agents sent after him had been low-level at best, but that confirmed his theory that Maria Hill was higher up the ladder. If he was right, like he usually was, Maria Hill was Fury’s new second-in-command. Which would mean that she had the clearance to know the truth about how his parents died.

“Then you can call me Hill,” she settled on. Tony walked straight into the kitchen and placed his food on the island, and he moved over to the coffeemaker on autopilot.

“Sounds boring. I’ll figure something else out after we get to know each other better. Coffee?” He already had his own cup out, and he pulled down a second one after she nodded. He poured them each a full cup, and the agent got another point for drinking her coffee black.

“I’m not here to get to know you better, Stark,” Hill said after taking a sip. She quickly took another, and Tony’s head tilted to the side as he studied the agent on the other side of the island. Straight-backed, clear eyed, and unflappable. No wonder Fury had promoted her so fast.

“You are here because Fury wants…What does he want again?” Tony asked and opened a carton of food. The smell and slight steam hit him in the face, and he felt his mouth watering as he turned to grab a plate from a cabinet. He pulled down two plates just in case the agent had skipped lunch too, and she looked down at the plate he slid in front of her with a confused furrow between her brows that made her look more human and less agent-like.

“The new suit. The one you designed for Agent Barton.” There was a certain edge in her tone when she said Clint’s name, but Tony didn’t falter as scooped out food onto his plate and then motioned for her to do the same.

“Thought for sure he’d want the new missile,” he said lightly. He noticed her eyeing a particular carton but refraining from taking the offered food, so he took it upon himself to drop a little bit of everything onto the plate in front of her.

“He’s already started filling out the request forms, but he says he does it more out of habit these days.” He finished dumping food onto her plate and then grinned across the island at her. “What are you doing?”

“Late lunch or early dinner, depending on your preference. Come on, agent. There’s no rule against eating on the job,” he said and waved a hand in the direction of her food. After a brief staring match, she dipped her head in thanks and then grabbed a pair of chopsticks to dig in.

“So, the suits?” she asked after he started eating.

“You know, I designed a singular suit for only one individual. Why should I make more?” He had already decided to give Fury the suits, because he couldn’t stop thinking about the other young agents. Agents like Clint, who never really had a choice but to join up. Agents like Clint’s pet Russian, who was trying to make up for all her wrongs. Agents like Sharon, who were young and idealistic and wanted to make a difference.

“Because I think, under the narcissism and flippancy, you care,” the agent stated simply.

“You got evidence to support that?” he asked her and tried not to smile. Her humor was incredibly dry, but she had a little bit of a sparkle in her eyes.

“Agent Barton and Agent Thirteen are all the evidence I need.” She definitely had that part of him figured out, and he had to hold back his usual eye-roll at the sound of Sharon’s codename. He knew that she didn’t want special treatment, as a relative of the founder, so no one within the agency knew her real name. Except for Fury, and Clint. Possibly the agent standing across from him.

“Agent Thirteen won’t accept my gifts,” he pointed out. He’d tried to upgrade all of Sharon’s gear when she first joined, and she had come to his home a week later and yelled at him for an hour straight about ethics. At least Clint still chose self-preservation over something as trivial as morals and ethics.

“What’s your answer, Stark?” Their plates were clean now, and Tony pouted where she could see as he started to pack up the leftovers.

“Aren’t you supposed to appeal to my ego and flatter me? Seduce me? Butter me up a little?” he asked as he carried the cartons to the fridge.

“If you were any other man, yes. You’re too smart to fall for my charms.” Her smile was barely there, just a quick curl, and Tony dropped his elbows onto the island and leaned towards her.

“Don’t sell yourself short, agent.” When all she did was raise a brow at him, Tony cracked and smiled at her. “Tell you what. Help me test a prototype, and I’ll give SHIELD the new suit designs. Deal?”

“What kind of prototype?” Her eyes were calculating and unwavering, and that kind of direct soul-flaying look reminded him of Pepper.

“Ever handled a flamethrower?” He saw the agent truly smile for the first time, wide and toothy, and he didn’t know if the shiver running down his spine was from excitement or fear. Possibly a mixture of both.

✪  
✪  
✪

“Tony! You’re going to be late if you don’t—What happened in here?” Pepper’s usually lovely voice sounded especially loud this morning, was it morning?, and Tony groaned as he forced his eyes to open. There was an answering groan next to him, and he rolled his head across a very hard surface and looked into fuzzy blue eyes.

“Oh, God,” Hill groaned and reached up with one hand to hold the side of her head. Tony’s eyes darted around to take stock, and he quickly realized that he and Agent Hill had passed out on top of the kitchen table. He was still wearing his jeans and tank from the day before, and he looked down to see the agent wearing a pair of his sweatpants and one of his tee shirts. When he turned to look out into the kitchen, he saw Pepper standing next to the table. The leftover Chinese food and drink bottles were scattered across the counters, and his modified flamethrower was sitting on top of the island.

“It’s not as bad as it looks, Pep, I promise,” Tony started with. It sounded like the agent next to him was sobbing, possibly dry heaving, and he reached over to blindly pat her back since she was lying on her stomach.

“Is that a flamethrower?” Pepper asked and cut her eyes at him.

“It’s totally safe!” Next to him, the agent snorted and then groaned when the movement disturbed her head. “Me and Amaretto here-”

“-I told you not to call me that-”

“-were running some routine tests and got thirsty-”

“-Fury can never know about this-”

“-so we had some drinks and then did some more tests-”

“-I got drunk and operated a flamethrower, which goes against several different safety protocols-”

“-and we decided to take a nap. I guess we slept too long?” Tony finished and looked at Pepper with his best _totally-innocent_ face.

“Does _Amaretto_ have a name?” Pepper asked him.

“Agent Maria Hill, of SHIELD,” Tony answered honestly. Pepper’s brows shot up in surprise, and she stepped a little closer to the table so that she could see over Tony where Hill was still lying flat.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Potts,” he heard Hill greet. He saw Pepper’s eyes taking them both in, fully clothed and lying next to each other without touching, and something in her expression softened.

“Likewise, Agent Hill,” she said with a professional smile. Then her eyes were on Tony again, like she could see right through him and down into his soul. “I can push your first meeting back, but you’ll have to work through lunch.”

“I can do that,” he said and tested out a nod. There was a slight pounding in his temples but no rolling stomach, so he was going to be okay.

“Go get ready, I’ll clean this up,” Pepper said and waved her hands in a get-up motion. Tony pushed himself into a sitting position, gave his head a moment to clear, and slipped off the table just as Pepper was kicking off her heels.

“Need a hand?” he asked Hill. He extended his hand and smiled a little when Hill took it, and he pulled her upright and kept a hold on her hand as she closed her eyes to steady herself. Next to them, Pepper was stripping off her jacket and twisting her hair up out of her way.

“Pepper, remind me to give you a vacation,” he decided as he tucked Hill’s hand into the bend of his elbow. The agent was still looking a little unsteady on her feet, so he could escort her through the house and make sure she didn’t collapse.

“I don’t know if you or the company would survive without me,” Pepper said with a brilliant smile. Tony thought that over and realized that she was probably right.

“New pair of shoes?” he suggested.

“You know me so well, boss,” Pepper called out as he and the agent started walking. He saw Hill wince at the raised volume of Pepper’s voice and lightly patted her hand in sympathy. The two of them shuffled out of the kitchen and down the hallway, towards his bedroom, and the agent seemed more stable by the time they walked into his room.

“You good on your own?” he asked her. Her clothes were still piled on the foot of his bed, where she had left them after he offered her something more comfortable to wear while operating the flamethrower. Or had they moved onto the miniaturized rocket launcher by that point?

“Yes. I’ll just get changed and go.” She had started to pull her hand away from his arm, but Tony’s reflexes were still fast despite the hangover. His fingers wrapped around her wrist in a loose hold that she could easily break, but she went still instead and blinked at him in clear confusion.

“I’m not kicking you out, agent. Take a shower, eat some breakfast, and then follow me to SI. I’m sure we can work out a deal before my first meeting,” he told her. She still looked confused, so maybe she was a little more hungover than he was.

“You’re really going to give us the suits?” she asked after a moment.

“You helped me, and I said I would. Why? Change your mind about wanting them?”

“No, of course not.” She shook her head a little, as if she was trying to rearrange her thoughts, and then looked at him again. “Thanks, Stark.”

“Thank _you_ ,” he said with a wink. She huffed out a laugh and pulled away from him, and he waited for her to pick up her clothes before falling onto his bed face first. While she was showering, he was going to reboot. A minute later, he heard his shower start up and turned so that his cheek was pressing against the sheets. He could still smell the smoke that had been clinging to the agent’s hair as he breathed in, and he let himself smile. Because today? Today was going to be a good day.

**25 DECEMBER 2009**

“Merry Christmas, Cousin Tony.”

“Merry Christmas, Cousin Sharon.”

The tinkling sound of clinking glass followed the quiet words, and Tony quickly tossed back his champagne. He leaned forward to drop the flute onto the low table in front of the couch and then relaxed back, and Sharon instantly curled into his side. Her legs were tucked up under her while her head rested over his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her back as he pressed a kiss against her hair. She sipped at her champagne as they looked at the Christmas tree standing proud next to the piano, and he had Pepper and Happy to thank for the tree. Happy had brought it in and secured it, and Pepper had taken over decorating it. The whole room smelled like fresh pine and the apple pie that Sharon had baked to go with the Christmas dinner that Tony had cooked. The dinner was eaten in the kitchen, just the two of them, but they had carried the pie with them into the den. It was just them this Christmas. Pepper was visiting her mother, Happy was spending the holidays with his girlfriend, Rhodey hadn’t been able to get leave, and Clint was on a mission with his pet Russian that Tony still hadn’t met. (He wasn’t bitter about that. Honestly.) He had spent several holidays alone, so he was grateful to have Sharon with him this year.

“I’m happy that I still have you,” Sharon whispered. Her champagne glass was empty, so he took it from her and stretched to put it on the table next to his. She curled in tighter against him, and he shifted so that he could wrap both arms around her. Because he knew what she was leaving off. She was happy that she still had him, but she missed her mother and great-aunt. Isabelle had passed away over the summer, brain aneurysm, while Peggy had been admitted to a care center in New York as her memory began to wane only a few weeks ago.

“I’ll always be here,” Tony promised. Where else would he be?

“I’m leaving tomorrow. Undercover. Could last for a year, more likely two,” Sharon confessed. Tony squeezed his eyes shut but kept his hold on her loose, and he wasn’t surprised. Sharon was an excellent agent, just like he always knew she would be. “Tony?”

“Hmm?” The star on top of the tree was a little crooked.

“Will you play something for me?” Her request wasn’t unreasonable, and no one else was around so he didn’t see the harm in playing for her. He eased her off his chest and stood up, and he grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around her. She smiled up at him as she pulled it around her shoulders, and he returned the look as he took a step back.

If asked, he was a terrible piano player. Very few people knew that he could play, because he didn’t like playing very often. He didn’t know when he would get to see Sharon again though, so he pushed down the usual ache of grief that he felt whenever he sat down at the piano and smiled over at her instead. She shot him a thumbs-up, and he shook his head before letting his fingers drift across the keys. He started to hum as he played, and the song quickly changed into Jingle Bells. Sharon started to sing, quietly at first but then gaining volume, and he joined in. They made up their own lyrics after a while, until Sharon was curled in on herself laughing and he was shaking so much that he could barely keep playing.

They moved through song after song, until Tony looked over to see that his cousin had fallen asleep. Sharon was curled up on her side with the blanket clutched under her chin, and she looked so young as she slept. She was twenty-five now, hadn’t been a kid for several years, but he remembered her sleeping the exact same way when she was a child. Curled up tight with her hands fisted around the blanket pulled up to her chin, blonde hair fanned out, with a quiet whistling sound coming from her parted lips. He smiled at the sight and at the memories before turning back to the piano, and he started playing before deciding what to play. As his fingers moved, he started to sing quietly so that he wouldn’t wake Sharon.

_"Try to remember, the kind of September, when life was slow and oh so mellow.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long chapter, but I really wanted to get through it. About Sharon. I love Sharon Carter, and it hurts me that so many people didn't like her character in the MCU. I'm not saying her characterization was perfect, but I still love Sharon Carter and I wanted her to be close to Tony. (Also, I know her family tree is strange. For the purposes of this story, Peggy's brother survived the war and Sharon is his granddaughter.) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	5. I Am Become Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint doesn't worry, Tony questions his life choices, and Brock becomes a babysitter.

****

**07 JANUARY 2010**

“She’s ready.” Clint barely paused from stuffing pizza into his mouth as he said it, and he watched with growing amusement as Tony stared blankly at the space in front of him. He had known Tony for over a decade now, which meant that he knew all of Tony’s little tics. Right now, the genius was picking through all of their past conversations while trying to formulate a snarky retort.

“Does this mean you and the Russian are going to upgrade from holding hands?” Tony asked and then turned to look at him. Clint made a show out of his rolling his eyes at Tony’s saccharine smile, he really needed to thank Phil for giving him that word-a-day calendar, and then licked the grease off of his thumb so that he could watch the older man’s face scrunch up in disgust. Tony was already grumbling about his horrible table manners as he turned back to the holographic screen in front of him, and Clint laughed out loud because he’d seen the billionaire hurriedly lick hot sauce off of his own arm instead of looking for a napkin.

“Told ya, Stark, it’s not like that,” Clint drawled and slumped against the couch a little more. A lot of things had changed in Tony’s workshop over the years, the equipment was definitely more advanced, but the couch was the same. Lumpy and _perfect_ , and the company was superb. Which was why Clint grinned as Dum-E rolled over to him with a grease-stained rag in his claw. “Thanks, Dum-E.”

“The Russian’s already been working in the field, so it’s not that. Does that mean?” Tony’s tone had raised in pitch, in excitement, and Clint nearly laughed at his expression but held back. It was a close call though, because Tony looked like a kid who was getting an early Christmas.

“Yeah, she said she’s ready to meet you. You free this weekend?” Clint asked as nonchalantly as possible. He watched Tony’s eyes go blank, he was reviewing his always-packed schedule, and Clint tried not to let his nerves show. It’d been eight years since his mission to eliminate Black Widow; eight long years of befriending Natasha Romanoff, and eight years of keeping his only friends all separated from each other. Tony wanted to meet Natasha, had wanted to ever since Clint first told him about the impromptu rescue mission, but Natasha hadn’t been ready. (He still hadn’t introduced Natasha to Sharon either, so she didn’t know that Agent Thirteen was a friend of his.) Tony shook his head a little, and Clint noted the little bit of tension in his jaw. Bad timing then.

“I’m preparing for a demonstration next week. No free time until then. Weekend after?” Tony offered. Natasha was recovering from a rough mission, but she rarely stayed on the bench for long. Fury probably wouldn’t give her a mission before next weekend though.

“Deal. What’s the demonstration for?” Clint looked away from Tony as Butterfingers rolled up to him, and he laughed quietly as he was tapped on the shoulder before Butterfingers continued on. When he looked back over at Tony, he was already working again. For someone that the media claimed was a narcissistic playboy, he really was a boring workaholic.

“Tell me the Russian’s name first.” Tony glanced over at him and wiggled his eyebrows, and Clint kinda hated that he somehow looked charming doing something that would make most people look ridiculous. If Clint did that exact same eyebrow thing while looking at someone, he’d either get laughed at or punched in the face.

“She wants to tell you herself,” Clint shrugged. He’d never give out Natasha’s name and betray her trust, not after how hard he worked to earn that trust. He could admit that he loved Tony; he loved the crazy genius who built him specific weapons and suits to keep him safe and different models of hearing aids, and he knew that Tony cared about him too. Clint called Sharon a friend and was always happy to spend time with her, and he loved Phil for taking him out of a jail cell and giving him a chance. Natasha though, Natasha was something completely different. She knew what it was like, could understand him in ways that the others couldn’t, and he wouldn’t ever do anything to make her distrust him.

“Fair enough. You and your Russian can keep your secrets,” Tony sighed and spun around in his chair. It left his back towards Clint, which he knew was Tony’s way of showing trust. Because while Tony wasn’t an agent, he moved like one sometimes. Acted like one in certain situations. The engineer also had one hell of a left hook.

It took a few minutes, but Tony always cracked eventually. The longer Clint stayed silent, the more fidgety Tony became. He finally broke and started talking while he continued to work, and Clint felt his face scrunching up. Tony was going to demonstrate one of his newest missiles, in _Afghanistan_. Moves or not, Tony was still a civilian and that was an active warzone. There was no point in trying to talk him out of it though, because Tony Stark was a stubborn bastard. Clint had even requested that the billionaire stop having socks sent to his SHIELD-issued apartment, but the damn things kept showing up. Every time he stumbled in from a mission, he’d find at least three new pairs in his chaotic sock drawer. One pair black, the others with weird designs or cartoons. _That_ was the Tony Stark that he knew. The one who bought him socks. Who made him purple hearing aids for his leisure time and stealth hearing aids that gave him superhuman hearing for missions. (He hadn’t told Fury or Phil about the superhuman hearing thing with his mission ears. Only Natasha knew that he and Tony had slowly worked up to superhuman hearing aids over the years.) He knew the Tony Stark that cooked a full spread breakfast only when Clint or someone else was around, never just for himself. The ruthless businessman and billionaire playboy were strangers to him.

“You don’t have to keep making weapons.” The words just fell out of him, because he was comfortable around Tony and could let his guard down, and Tony’s chair slowly swiveled back around. He met the man’s eyes and didn’t back down, and Tony raised a brow at him.

“Care to elaborate, kid?” Tony was rankled, because he only called Clint a kid when he wanted to hurry his way through a conversation. Clint was twenty-seven now and not some sixteen year old kid trying not to lose his shit in a billionaire’s basement, so the name didn’t bother him.

“I just mean, you can do more than just make weapons, you know? You’ve been making my ears for years now, I overheard Fury and Hill talking about how you made Heather a leg—”

“Agent Person makes the best pecan pie on the West Coast, and she’s been training for some charity marathon thing that the Maria Stark Foundation is sponsoring,” Tony attempted to explain. Because Tony always thought he needed a reason to do something kind.

“All I’m saying is, you could make prosthetics. Move your focus to the defensive side of things, like those uniforms you made for everyone.”

“Ugh, those were so _plain_. Fury vetoed all of the good designs,” Tony groaned. The SHIELD issued uniforms were pretty plain, but black worked best for stealth. Most of the agents just cared that the suits were extremely lightweight and protected against most projectiles.

“Do you get what I’m saying?” Clint finally asked. Tony stopped grumbling to himself and let his face settle into a more serious expression, which was rare, and Clint matched him.

“Yes, Barton, I get what you’re saying. We’ve been over this though, I’m—”

“—just a mechanic taking orders, I’ve heard the speech. Since when does Tony Stark take orders?” Clint quickly countered.

“Stark Industries takes the orders, and I do work on more things than just weapons. I’ve got whole divisions dedicated to projects that aren’t weapons related, but we have to be realistic. Right now, our military needs the cutting edge,” Tony said and grinned. It was the same grin that Clint had seen plastered over screens and in magazines, and he shook his head at the completely fake look.

“Next weekend?” Clint asked instead of continuing the discussion.

“The demonstration is on Tuesday, so I’ll be back here by Thursday at the latest. Bring your Russian over anytime after that,” Tony said and then nodded to back the words up. Clint hummed and started to drum his fingers against his knees, and he raised a brow when he realized that Tony was still looking at him and hadn’t returned to his work.

“Spit it out, old man,” he drawled a moment later. Tony’s dark eyes narrowed in a glare, but the glare quickly faded as Tony leaned back in his chair.

“You heard anything about Sharon?” Tony asked him. Sharon was deep undercover, no contact, which Tony knew. If Tony really wanted to know, he could probably hack SHIELD and find out exactly where she was. Clint was almost surprised at his restraint. Almost. He knew that Tony was holding back out of respect for Sharon, not SHIELD.

“Still in South America, last I heard. Sharon’s one of the best. She’s fine,” Clint said carefully. Tony nodded again and turned around, and Clint closed his eyes as he let his head fall back against the couch. He’d hang out for a little longer, make sure that Tony ate something, and then go tell Natasha that she’d get to meet Tony Stark in a little over a week.

✪  
✪  
✪

“Barton!” Clint froze at the sound of Fury’s yell with half of a donut shoved into his mouth, and he exchanged a quick look with Natasha. She raised one shoulder in a shrug as she took a sip of her coffee, and Clint hurriedly crammed the rest of his breakfast into his mouth before starting towards Fury’s office. If he was getting called in this early, it couldn’t be good.

 _“Have I broke any agency rules lately? Besides the usual ones?”_ He was trying to think of anything that he could have done to piss off Fury, but he was drawing a blank. He’d been on his best behavior while Natasha was on the bench, because he didn’t want to upset her after she’d just survived an explosion and he wanted to stay on Fury’s good side so that he could take some time off this weekend. Natasha was finally going to meet Tony, and there was no way he was going to miss that.

“Shut the door, Clint,” he heard as he walked into Fury’s office. Phil was standing in front of Fury’s desk, next to Fury because the Director wasn’t behind his desk like usual, and Clint slowly closed the door as his stomach started to tighten. Something was wrong.

“What’d I do this time?” he asked. Phil looked over at Fury, but the Director continued to look at him as he stopped in front of them.

“What I am about to tell you is classified, Barton, and does not leave this room. Understood?” Fury demanded. Clint worked for a spy agency as a secret agent, so why the dramatics?

“My lips are sealed, sir,” he said and mimed just that. Normally his antics would at least get a ghost of a smile out of Phil, but his handler didn’t react at all.

“Tony Stark has been taken captive by a terrorist organization. Whereabouts are currently unknown,” Fury said. Clint ran the words through his head, once-twice, and then turned on his heel. “Barton!”

“Clint,” Phil said once Clint had stopped at the closed door. His hands were clenched into such tight fists that his hands were shaking, and it felt like there were rocks sitting in the pit of his stomach. The only thing about him that remained steady was his breathing, like when he was preparing to take a shot.

“Efforts are being made to locate Stark, but that is not your mission. I am only telling you because of your relationship,” Fury slowly bit out. There were some agents who didn’t like him because he got special privileges, but Fury had never complained. Not that Clint could focus on any of that, because Tony was _missing_.

“Understood, sir,” Clint said and opened the door. He’d only taken two steps out of the office when a hand gripped his bicep, and he looked over into blue eyes. Hill. She was looking up at him with her lips pinched into a grim line, and he remembered all of the annoyed expressions that she’d made when Tony’s name was mentioned.

“Don’t underestimate Stark,” she whispered. It took him a second, but he realized that she was worried. Maybe not as worried as he was, but some part of her must have cared about Tony’s wellbeing if she was trying to reassure him.

“I feel sorry for his captors. They’ll never know what hit ‘em,” Clint said and walked away as soon as Hill released him.

Tony was going to be fine. Hell, he might even still make it back in time to meet Natasha. If he didn’t, they’d reschedule. Because there was no way that Tony Stark was going to let himself get killed. The man was a genius, right? If anyone could save themselves, it was him. Tony was going to come home, and everything was going to be like it always was.

✪  
✪  
✪

Brock Rumlow held his spine straight as he quickly descended the stairs; the posture held because discipline had been beaten into him, and the fractured edges of his broken rib grating together helped some as well. SHIELD had him on stand-down until the rib healed, but HYDRA expected him to work through the pain. After nearly twenty years, a single broken rib barely registered. He’d been called in with his stomach held together with staples and luck, but he could still hear the crack of his jaw as his teeth ground together when his feet came off the last stair. No one was around to see the quick clench of his eyes or the flare of his nostrils as he took in a quick breath, and he didn’t slow down after reaching the dark hallway. As he got closer to his destination, his steps slowed into a more even pace and his skin started to prickle in the colder air. No amount of beatings could stop the automatic reaction to the cold temperature, but the cold temperature wasn’t why he hated coming to this underground bunker and stepping through the large bank vault door.

“Rumlow. Punctual, as always,” a quiet voice said as Brock walked into the room. He didn’t look at the speaker, who he knew was standing on his far right near a bank of monitors, because his whole focus was on the center of the room.

 _“Twenty years of this shit, and he’s still the same,”_ he thought. The Soldier was sitting upright in the chair, not strapped in this time, and blank eyes stared out. Brock didn’t think that the Soldier was looking at him. Those dead eyes were just aimed in his direction.

“Have you heard about Stark?” Whitehall had turned to face him, so Brock looked away from the Soldier and over to the leader of his sect. HYDRA was smart; Brock had worked for HYDRA since he was eighteen and SHIELD since he was twenty-six, and he still didn’t know all of the HYDRA agents hidden within SHIELD. He only knew his team, Daniel Whitehall, and the Soldier.

“Fury’s keeping it quiet, but I’ve heard that he’s missing after an attack in Afghanistan,” Brock reported. Everyone in SHIELD loved to gossip about Stark; the founder’s son that refused to join up, but that doled out gifts to his favorites. Brock had never met the genius, but he still listened to all of the whispers about him.

“Stark’s hunt for HYDRA and propensity for exploring SHIELD files has become a problem, and he has reached the end of his usefulness. Stane was ordered to eliminate him.” Whitehall paused and placed his hands into the pockets of the white lab coat he was wearing, and Brock hid his surprise at learning that Obadiah Stane was one of them. “He failed. The men he paid to eliminate Stark have instead kept him in captivity, for their own purposes. Should he survive, which I believe is possible because I will not underestimate him like Stane did, someone will need to finish the job.”

 _“Is that why I’m here? To take out Tony Stark?”_ Brock knew better than to voice his thoughts aloud, so he remained at attention and waited for Whitehall to continue. Senior agent or not, he could still be punished for talking out of turn.

“The Asset has just completed a mission. I will not return him to cryo until Tony Stark is dead. I expect you to brief him on Tony Stark and maintain his readiness, should he be needed,” Whitehall ordered. Brock got called in to babysit the Soldier, on the off-chance that Tony Stark escaped captivity. Not for the first time and probably not for the last time, Brock thought about walking away from it all. No more HYDRA, no more SHIELD, no more bullshit missions. Getting hunted down wouldn’t be worth it. Maybe SHIELD would just kill him, but HYDRA would deny him death for as long as possible.

“Yes, doctor,” Brock said and felt his cheek twitch. Whitehall didn’t like to be called sir, he’d learned that the hard way, and he felt rage boiling in his stomach as Whitehall smiled and clapped his hands.

“The Asset has already been prepared. He is to remain here, and so are you,” Whitehall told him. Brock nodded without saying anything, and Whitehall gathered up a few files before starting to walk. The white-haired doctor smiled at him as he paused to hand over a file on Stark, and Brock held still until that large vault door closed behind the doctor. Only then did he turn and look at the Soldier, who hadn’t moved at all throughout the entire conversation.

“Looks like it’s just the two of us, _Soldat_.” The Soldier’s eyes lifted, it was the first reaction since Brock had walked into the room, and he walked a little closer now and paid attention to the way that those dead eyes tracked his movement. “I know you can’t remember me, but you and I have worked together before. I’m here to tell you about your new mission.”

Brock had been thirty the first time he was sent on a mission with the Soldier, but that wasn’t the first time he had seen HYDRA’s greatest weapon. He’d first glimpsed the Soldier when he was nineteen, back when he was still a loaded weapon that HYDRA had taken off the streets, and he had stupidly thought that the Soldier wasn’t anything special. Most of the time, the man was as still as a statue and appeared harmless with his blank eyes. In his first training session with the Soldier, Brock limped away with a broken jaw and pissed blood for a week. The Soldier had beaten him into one of HYDRA’s top agents, and whatever mutated shit that was running through the Soldier’s veins was polluting his bloodstream too. Brock’s serum had been a watered down version, since whatever they had used on the Soldier had killed all the others, but it still gave Brock an edge. The shit they’d pumped him full of was the reason he could handle the Soldier on missions and was the reason that he could still keep up with the younger field agents after hitting forty. He wasn’t an idiot though. Enhanced strength or not, he still wasn’t a match for the Soldier.

“Tony Stark is my mission.” The voice was quiet, rusty, and Brock paused. He’d been dragging a chair over, to sit in front of the Soldier, and he hadn’t been expecting the Soldier to speak. He never did unless he was asked a direct question.

“What do you know about Tony Stark?” Brock asked as he placed the chair in front of the Soldier. He carefully sat down and dipped his head to catch the Soldier’s eyes, but they were the same flat gray color as always.

“Tony Stark is my mission,” the Soldier repeated. Brock looked at the file in his hand and flipped it open, and he pulled out a picture of Tony Stark. It’d been taken at some kind of black-tie event; Stark was looking straight ahead, smile framed by his famous goatee, and it was dated from last New Year’s.

“This is your mission,” Brock said and held the picture in the Soldier’s field of vision. He was watching the Soldier carefully, so he noticed the slight furrow of his brow before his expression blanked again. Brock returned the picture to the file and leaned forwards, but the Soldier didn’t react in any kind of way.

He knew who the Soldier was before HYDRA got their hands on him. _Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes_. The man fought at Captain America’s side, was Steve Rogers’s best friend, and had been a part of the Howling Commandos. Those were the only lessons he had enjoyed in school, that he remembered enjoying, and he had almost felt sick the first time he saw the Soldier’s face and recognized it from his old history books. Almost. By that point, he was filled with too much anger and in too much physical pain to really feel anything. The man that the Soldier had been worked alongside Howard Stark, and everyone knew that Tony Stark strongly resembled his father. Had some part of the Soldier recognized the face of a Stark, or was Brock deluded in thinking that the Soldier had any access to his memories after decades of programming?

“ _Soldat_? Do you need anything?” Brock would never ask the question with someone else in the room, he knew better than to treat the Soldier like anything other than a weapon, but the Soldier had been a man once. The Soldier didn’t reply, but he never did when Brock asked. Never asked for food, water, a blanket, _nothing_.

Brock opened the file again, quickly scanned the information on the first page, and then handed it to the Soldier with instructions to memorize the information. He knew he’d repeat the orders with every piece of paper in the file, until the Soldier knew everything about Tony Stark that HYDRA did, and the file was a refresher for him. He knew most of it already. The only son of Howard and Maria Stark, and a genius like his father before him. Graduated MIT at seventeen but refused to follow in his father’s footsteps, refused to join SHIELD and didn’t work for Stark Industries. Twenty-one when his parents died, in a reported car accident that was caused by the Soldier, but the Soldier didn’t react as he read over those details. Stark took over at Stark Industries, and his face had been inescapable ever since. If Stark Industries wasn’t in the news, Stark’s personal life was. Brock and the Soldier read over newspaper articles, dossiers on the people closest to Stark, and he recognized some of the names. Obadiah Stane was known for his work in Stark Industries, but Brock knew he was only the business side. Stark was the mind behind the company. James Rhodes was an Air Force Colonel and the official military liaison with Stark Industries, but he had been Stark’s roommate back during their MIT days. He made a note of the bodyguard and personal assistant, Harold “Happy” Hogan and Virginia “Pepper” Potts, but neither of them were a threat. The last two names could be complications. Agent Thirteen, Sharon Carter, was considered as family. Agent Barton, Hawkeye, had always been one of Stark’s favorites. They were both skilled agents, but neither of them could stand against the Soldier. Complications but not deterrents.

When they were finished going over Stark’s extensive file, Brock ordered the Soldier to the back of the room. The Soldier moved stiffly, he’d probably been wiped before Brock arrived, and he watched as the Soldier stared blankly down at the cot in the back corner. Brock had to order him to lie down and then he added in an order of sleep, and the Soldier’s posture remained tense even as his eyes closed. There was only one cot in the room, no one expected the Soldier to sleep on a cot, but there was no telling how long the Soldier had been awake. The Soldier’s missions could last for days, so it was better to let the Soldier rest now. Once he was sure that the Soldier was going to remain still, Brock moved farther down the wall and slowly slid down to sit on the floor. He still had his jacket, and he pulled it in tighter as he crossed his arms over his stomach and then closed his eyes. For now, they would rest and wait to see if Tony Stark survived.

**20 APRIL 2010**

_“What do you say to your other nickname? The Merchant of Death?”_

Tony opened his eyes and stared out into the darkness of the cave. Nearby, he could hear Yinsen’s quiet whistling snore. They never got to sleep for long, and it seemed like he couldn’t sleep even when he had the chance. The ache in his chest was constant, a deep suffocating pain that made him want to claw his own heart out, and he kept waking up gasping. Unable to breathe. While awake, he couldn’t take a full breath. The metal in his chest wouldn’t allow it. That wasn’t the worst of it. In his few quiet moments, his thoughts ran wild. He replayed little moments from different times of his life. Words that Howard would slur and shouts of people cheering his name. Rhodey telling him to take a vacation and Clint telling him that he could do more than just make weapons. Sometimes he thought he could hear Sharon crying or smell Pepper’s perfume.

_“Did I bring this on myself? Is this what Death’s Merchant deserves?”_

He knew what his weapons were capable of, but he thought he’d been building them for the right reasons. Thought he’d been helping to save the world. His genius title needed to be revoked, because he should have known that something like this was possible. Maybe not the getting kidnapped part, that would have been a surprise even if he had known about his weapons falling into the wrong hands, but he should have had an inkling. How many innocent people had been killed because of him? Because of the tech that he created? Was it even possible to get an accurate number? How long had his weapons been sold to the wrong people? Had it happened when Howard was still in charge?

_“Stop crying, Tony,” Howard said as he knelt down. Tony had ripped his knee open after falling off his bike, and Howard pressed a towel against his bleeding knee while looking into Tony’s eyes. “What are Stark men made of?”_

_“Iron,” Tony mumbled. Even at age seven, he’d heard that enough to have it memorized. Knew how to say it in Italian too._

_“That’s right, so stop crying. See? The bleeding has already stopped.”_

“Stark men are made of iron,” Tony whispered and tapped his fingers against the top of his chest. He didn’t have time to dwell on memory lane. He had to get out of this cave and make things right.

✪  
✪  
✪

“Rumlow!” Brock dodged the foot aimed at his face and jumped back, and the Soldier straightened up until he was standing at attention. Brock looked over his shoulder as he wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes narrowed on the agent walking across the bunker. Haynes was a senior agent, only a couple of years younger than Brock, but the two of them had never gotten along. Haynes wasn’t as disciplined as the other senior HYDRA agents, and something about him never sat right with Brock. That feeling only increased as Haynes whistled quietly while looking at the Soldier.

“You have a reason for interrupting me?” Brock asked. Haynes looked away from the Soldier but continued walking forward, until he had stepped past Brock, and his hands fisted as Haynes approached the immobile Soldier.

“Whitehall wants to see you. Says it’s urgent.” Haynes lifted his arm and reached out, and Brock moved forward on instinct. He grabbed Haynes’s wrist before his fingers could grip the Soldier’s chin, and pale eyes snapped over to look at him as Haynes started to smile. “Protective over your pet, Rumlow?”

“The Asset belongs to HYDRA, and you don’t have the clearance to handle him,” Brock said and tightened his grip until he could feel the smaller bones in Haynes’s wrist shifting. To his credit, Haynes didn’t show the pain he was feeling.

“Fair enough,” Haynes said and attempted to pull away. Brock’s hold was iron tight, and he held Haynes’s pale eyes for a moment before releasing him. “Better not keep Whitehall waiting.”

Brock listened as Haynes left the training room, and he kept his eyes on the Soldier. He hadn’t moved at all during Brock’s exchange with Haynes, was still standing at attention, and Brock wiped his hand against his side before letting out a rare sigh. He’d been responsible for the Soldier for three months now, which meant that he spent all of his free time down in the freezing cold bunker. The training room was just a small room connected to the main part of the bunker, just as cold as the main room, but Brock had started to acclimate to the temperature over the past few months. He’d been on missions, SHIELD only, and the Soldier remained in the bunker when Brock was gone. He had managed to get the Soldier to sleep every couple of days and had even got him to eat some solid food instead of the sludge they usually fed into him, but the Soldier still had the same dead eyes. This was the longest that he’d ever been out of cryo, but he looked like he’d just emerged from the ice.

“Follow me,” he told the Soldier. He turned and led the way out of the training room, and he could hear Whitehall typing as they walked into the main room. The doctor continued whatever he was doing, and Brock came to a stop with the Soldier a step behind him and to his right. They both shifted to stand at attention, and sometimes Brock wondered if he was any different from the Soldier. Were his eyes dead yet?

“Tony Stark has escaped captivity. He is being transported back to the United States,” Whitehall said without looking at them. Brock wasn’t sure if the genius would survive after the first month, but he wasn’t exactly surprised that he had managed to escape.

 _“He was raised by agents and he’s a genius. Never underestimate a Stark,”_ Brock thought as he waited for his orders.

“Stane has requested time to discover how Stark survived. He believes that Stark has created some new tech and that was how he was able to escape.” Whitehall cursed under his breath, Brock picked up the German easily, and then the doctor turned and quickly looked them both over. “You are to observe Stark until we can recover his new tech.”

 _“Surviving captivity just to be killed at home. Stark should have just gave up in the desert,”_ Brock thought as the doctor scanned the Soldier. Despite being off ice for months, he was still just as unresponsive and dead-eyed as ever.

“I expect a report every twenty-four hours. You’re both dismissed,” Whitehall said and turned around again. Brock looked over at the Soldier, who was only dressed in a simple pair of pants and sleeveless shirt, and realized that he’d have to pack them both some gear before they left. It was finally time for their mission to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant for this to be a longer chapter, but I found a good stopping point. The next chapter will show Tony back at home. I will be writing some scenes from the first movie, but I'll also be making a lot of changes so it shouldn't be boring. I hope. About Brock. I am not a Crossbones fan, he's a horrible human being in the comics, but I do love Frank Grillo. So, expect to see more of Brock as the story continues. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone reading and supporting the story, and I hope everyone is staying safe.


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